Credit Unions and Banks Follow Different Federal Insurance Rules

If your money is at a credit union rather than a bank, a different federal agency and a different regulation govern it. Credit unions fall under “PART 745—SHARE INSURANCE AND APPENDIX” (eCFR Part 745), issued by the National Credit Union Administration, while banks fall under “Part 330—Deposit Insurance Coverage” (eCFR Part 330), issued by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. These are separate parts of the Code of Federal Regulations, administered by separate agencies, and they use different terminology — “share insurance” for credit unions versus “deposit insurance” for banks.

This original record-reading guide is a general reading aid, not cited evidence. It does not depict a source record; the article text and source links provide the facts.

Key points

• Credit union accounts are governed by NCUA’s “PART 745—SHARE INSURANCE AND APPENDIX” (eCFR Part 745).
• Bank accounts are governed by the FDIC’s “Part 330—Deposit Insurance Coverage” (eCFR Part 330).
• The two rules also sit in different regulatory subchapters: credit union rules fall under “Subchapter A —Regulations Affecting Credit Unions,” while bank rules fall under “Subchapter B—Regulations and Statements of General Policy” (eCFR Part 745; eCFR Part 330).
• The two systems use different vocabulary for the same general concept: credit unions insure “shares,” while banks insure “deposits” (eCFR Part 745; eCFR Part 330).
• No specific coverage dollar amount is addressed here for either institution type.

The credit union rule

Credit union accounts are not covered by the FDIC. Instead, they’re covered by a rule titled “PART 745—SHARE INSURANCE AND APPENDIX” (eCFR Part 745). This part is issued by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), which the regulation identifies as “Chapter VII —National Credit Union Administration” (eCFR Part 745) within Title 12 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Within that chapter, Part 745 sits under “Subchapter A —Regulations Affecting Credit Unions” (eCFR Part 745), a subchapter that applies specifically to credit unions rather than to banks.

Note the terminology: the regulation’s title uses the word “share,” not “deposit,” which is why the applicable federal insurance regime is called “share insurance” rather than “deposit insurance” (eCFR Part 745).

The bank rule: FDIC’s Part 330

Bank accounts, by contrast, are covered by “Part 330—Deposit Insurance Coverage” (eCFR Part 330). This part is issued by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), identified in the regulation as “Chapter III—Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation” (eCFR Part 330) within Title 12. Part 330 sits under “Subchapter B—Regulations and Statements of General Policy” (eCFR Part 330) — a different subchapter, under a different chapter, administered by a different agency than the credit union rule.

Why the split matters

These are not two names for the same rule. They are two separate regulatory parts, in two separate chapters of Title 12, issued by two separate federal agencies, using two different sets of terminology. A reader trying to locate the rule that actually governs their account needs to know which chapter and which agency applies to their institution type before looking up anything else about how that coverage works.

This structural mapping is also where this article’s scope ends. It does not state a specific NCUA share-insurance coverage dollar amount, and readers should not assume that any credit union coverage limit matches the FDIC’s insurance limit for banks — that figure was not independently verified against the current text of Part 745 in this research pass, so it is left out rather than guessed. It does not recommend or evaluate any specific institution or type of institution as a place to keep money.

Source links

• eCFR Title 12 Part 745 — Share Insurance (NCUA)
• eCFR Title 12 Part 330 — Deposit Insurance Coverage (FDIC)