This Is Scary - IndyMac Bank Failure

This morning I woke up to the news of the failure of IndyMac Bank. One news article said that the assets of the bank were "seized" by the FDIC. Bank depositors have very limited access to their funds over this weekend. They are limited to what they can get through an ATM card. Just think - this would not be the weekend to have the ATM "eat" your bank card.

This is the second largest bank failure in U.S. history. Some 10,000 depositors had funds in IndyMac in excess of the insured limit of $100,000 for a total of $1 BILLION. According to an FDIC statement, funds deposited in IRAs were separately insured up to $250,000.

The failure of IndyMac should serve as a sign for everyone to step back and take a good hard look at the safety of their assets. It has been a long time since the insured limit of $100,000 was set. Many years ago, the $100,000 limit seemed unattainable to many people. Right now, I have many clients who routinely keep a higher balance than that in their checking account. It is not at all unusual for someone to have more than $250,000 in an IRA in this day and age.

The days of the bank failures are pretty much in the distant past in the days of the "Great Depression" in most of our minds. However, with the recent news stories about the struggles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the collapse of the housing market and now the failure of IndyMac, I think this is a wake up call to all of us.

Please call me if you need some ideas on how to possibly safeguard your money. We can look at your specific individual situation to see what will work for you.

E-mail Alert of the Day

Recently, I signed up for emergency alerts which are delivered by e-mail so that I could keep up with the extreme bad weather and traffic in the local area. In the Washington, DC area, the weather seems to have been changing in the last few years and producing numerous tornadoes which never used to be commonplace. It is also not unusual for an accident to tie up the beltway for many hours at a time. Lately, there have been emergency alerts relating to breaking water pipes and the necessity to boil water. Every day seems to bring another new disaster.

I was surprised though when I did receive the following e-mail alert yesterday morning:

“Severe traffic disruptions at Lee Hwy/Union Mill Rd at the Shell Gas Station due to a gas giveaway from 7 a.m until 9 a.m”