CDIC (Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation)

The Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, or CDIC, is a federal Crown corporation that protects your deposits if a member bank or financial institution fails. If your bank were to go under, CDIC coverage ensures you get your money back, up to certain limits.

What’s covered

CDIC insures eligible deposits up to $100,000 per depositor, per member institution, per coverage category. Eligible deposits include savings accounts, chequing accounts, GICs with terms of five years or less, and certain other deposit products.

The coverage categories are separate, which means you can be insured for more than $100,000 at the same institution if your deposits are in different categories. For example, deposits in your own name, joint deposits, TFSA deposits, and RRSP deposits each get their own $100,000 of coverage.

What’s not covered

CDIC does not cover stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, bonds, or cryptocurrency. It also doesn’t cover GICs with terms longer than five years, or deposits held at institutions that aren’t CDIC members (like credit unions, which have their own provincial deposit insurance).

Why it matters

For the most part, CDIC coverage is something you’ll never need to think about. Canadian banks are well-regulated and bank failures are extremely rare. But it’s good to know the protection exists, especially if you’re holding large amounts in savings accounts or GICs. If your deposits at a single institution are approaching $100,000, it may be worth spreading them across categories or institutions to stay fully covered.

Example

Say you have $250,000 in deposits at one bank. You could structure it as: $100,000 in a savings account in your name, $100,000 in a TFSA GIC, and $50,000 in a joint savings account with your spouse. Each of those categories gets its own $100,000 of CDIC coverage, so the full $250,000 would be protected. If all $250,000 sat in a single savings account in your name, only $100,000 would be covered.