Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: insuring $500,000 is the easy part — a married couple covers it at one bank with two individual accounts, and anyone covers it across two banks with no structure at all. The harder question, and the one that actually costs retirees money, is how much of it should be sitting in cash in the first place.
Covering it, in one paragraph
Two individual accounts at one bank cover $500,000 for a married couple ($250,000 each under 12 CFR 330.6(a)). One person alone is capped at $250,000 across all their own-name accounts at that bank, so a single holder either uses two institutions or names beneficiaries to open the trust category. There is no version of this that requires paying anyone.
The question underneath it
Large cash balances usually arrive from an event — a house sale, an inheritance, a business exit — and the money often sits far longer than intended because no decision gets made. That delay has a cost, and it is rarely counted. What genuinely belongs in cash is the money with a job in the next few years: the reserve, the tax bill, the known purchase.
Two things worth knowing before you park it
Treasury interest is exempt from state and local income tax, which changes the comparison against a bank account in a high-tax state — how that works, state by state. And if this cash is part of a retirement drawdown, the order you spend from matters more than the yield you get — the withdrawal-order calculator prices that.
If the balance is larger: $1 million, $2 million, and the full category table.
The insurance is free. The allocation decision is the one worth advice.
A large cash balance that has been waiting for a decision is the most common and most expensive form of drift. Two or three independent views on what should stay liquid is a reasonable way to break the tie.
If your portfolio is $250,000 or more, this connects you — free, with no obligation to hire anyone — with 2 to 3 vetted advisors.
Before you start, what actually happens. The matching service is run by WiserAdvisor, an independent advisor-matching company. It opens on their site, asks for your ZIP code and a few questions, and matches you with 2 to 3 vetted advisors. It is free to you.
WiserAdvisor states the service is built for portfolios of $250,000 and above. By submitting, you consent to emails, phone calls and text messages from WiserAdvisor and up to three advisors, so expect to be contacted. Clear Money Guide is paid when you complete the form, whether or not you ever hire anyone.
Compare fees, scope, conflicts, credentials and fiduciary duty before you hire anyone. Structuring deposit insurance is something you can do yourself, for free, at the bank.
Opens on WiserAdvisor’s site in a new tab.
Every coverage figure on this page is read from the regulation itself — 12 CFR part 330 (FDIC) and part 745 (NCUA) via the official eCFR, the Federal Register for rules not yet in force, and SIPC’s own statement of what it covers. General information, not legal or financial advice; confirm your own position with your institution or the FDIC’s EDIE tool before relying on it.