Is My Money In Savings Accounts and GICs At Simplii Financial Protected by CDIC Insurance?

Simplii Financial is the new name for what used to be called President’s Choice Financial. It’s also a somewhat new business and is owned and run by CIBC. Recently I read a question about what kind of CDIC insurance Simplii Financial offered on cash deposits and guaranteed investment certificates so I decided to check.

Be Careful Of the Insurance Maximums If You Have Money at CIBC and Money at Simplii Financial

First, deposits at Simplii Financial are insured by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, CDIC.

HOWEVER, the limit of $100 000 we’re all so used to reading applies to any money you have in that type of account at both CIBC and Simplii Financial, because they are both insured under one policy.

For example,

we have

  • a joint CIBC chequing account
  • a joint Simplii Financial chequing account
  • a joint Simplii Financial savings account

We are only insured up to $100 000 deposited in total in those accounts. If we bought any regular GICs at CIBC or Simplii Financial, those would also be insured only if the total of the 3 bank accounts and all of the GICs was $100 000 or less.

Because CDIC treats your money the same if it’s at CIBC or at Simplii Financial, which is part of CIBC, you may want to make sure you understand the maximums and don’t exceed them if you bank with both institutions.

Are Tangerine and ScotiaBank Accounts Insured Together To One CDIC Maximum Also?

No.

I checked whether this was also the case with Tangerine. After all the Bank of Nova Scotia bought out Tangerine.

But no, they have separate CDIC insurance. So you can reach the $100 000 limit on, say a savings account at ScotiaBank and also reach the $100 000 limit on another savings account at Tangerine and you will be insured separately to the full amount on each of them.

We don’t bank with BNS so we never checked this before. I’m glad I learned about the limits on CIBC/Simplii Financial though. It’s unlikely I’d ever have more than $100 000 in the two banks but better to know now that find out the hard way later that we’re not fully insured!

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Do you keep money at both CIBC and Simplii Financial? Did you know you had to keep the totals across the 2 banks in the different categories under $100 000 each? Please share your experiences with a comment.