Do you know if your money is safe?

Banks rarely fail in Canada. In fact, since Parliament created the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) almost 50 years ago, there have been 43 failures of its member financial institutions. That may seem like a lot in a country where most of us believe that it can't happen, but the last one occurred 20 years ago.

The important thing to remember is that CDIC protected depositors in each of those instances, and no one lost a single dollar of insured deposits. But how does deposit insurance work? There are a few things you should know if you are conce
ed about the safety of your hard-ea
ed money:

• Is my bank a member of CDIC?

• What is an insured deposit?

• Are my deposits in Canadian dollars?

• How do I get my money back if my bank fails?

• The answers to these questions are available from your financial advisor, where you bank or invest, and at cdic.ca.