Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: $2,000,000 does not fit at one bank on ordinary accounts alone. A married couple maxes at $1,000,000 that way; getting to $2,000,000 at a single institution means using the trust category, where the five-beneficiary cap now binds. Two institutions remains the answer that needs no paperwork at all.
What one bank can actually do
- Two individual accounts — $500,000
- One joint account — $500,000
- Trust category, each spouse as grantor naming five beneficiaries — up to $1,250,000 each
On paper that clears $2,000,000 comfortably. In practice it requires each grantor to have five eligible beneficiaries they actually intend to leave money to, which is a real constraint rather than a formality — the beneficiaries have to be people or entities genuinely expected to receive the funds.
Why the cap is the binding constraint now
Before 2024 the way to get past five beneficiaries was to add a different kind of trust. That route is closed: one grantor’s revocable and irrevocable trust deposits at one bank are now a single aggregated category. Five beneficiaries × $250,000 is a hard ceiling per grantor per bank, and no amount of documentation moves it.
The unglamorous answer
Three institutions and no structure at all covers $2,000,000 for a couple without a single beneficiary designation. Deposit-placement networks exist to do the splitting for you across many banks; they are a convenience purchase, and the honest framing is that you are paying to avoid opening accounts yourself.
The 2024 change that broke the standard advice
The advice you will still find published almost everywhere is to open a payable-on-death account and a living trust account at the same bank, on the theory that they sit in different categories and therefore stack. That stopped working. The FDIC now aggregates them: informal revocable trusts (payable-on-death, in-trust-for, Totten), formal revocable trusts (living and family trusts) and irrevocable trusts from the same grantor are one category at one bank — and the whole category is capped at five beneficiaries.
The regulation is blunt about it: trust deposits that pass from the same grantor “are aggregated for purposes of determining coverage under this section, regardless of whether those deposits are held in connection with an informal revocable trust, formal revocable trust, or irrevocable trust” (12 CFR 330.10(b)(2)). So $250,000 × five beneficiaries — $1,250,000 per grantor per bank — is the ceiling on that whole category, no matter how many separate trust documents you sign.
The full category table, with every citation: how to insure more than $250,000. Credit unions run on different rules until 1 December 2026 — FDIC vs SIPC vs NCUA.
At this level the structuring is the easy half.
Insuring the balance is free and you can do it yourself. What to do with a position this size — how much stays liquid, what it costs you to hold it in cash — is the question worth getting two or three independent views on.
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.