That's very odd, the entire first page was full of hits for me. What were you searching?

Take a look at https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/ways-to-insure-excess.... It explains several methods, including extra deposit insurance from CDARS, MaxSafe, Depositors Insurance Fund, etc. It also explains cash management accounts, credit union overflow, using multiple banks, and so forth. I can't help but think a good CFO or comptroller would be well aware of these.

Yes, I'm aware that I can put money in multiple accounts, or get an account that spreads the money to multiple accounts for me. None of these are what I was responding to: the suggestion to "purchase 3rd party insurance." The closest in that article is DIF but even that isn't insurance you go and buy, it's another kind of special bank account available at DIF's member banks. As far as I can tell, you can't just go buy supplemental deposit insurance, but for some reason people keep suggesting that as something SVB's depositors should have done.

(And as someone who's worked as the first employee of a startup, I can tell you it was while before we were able to get a CFO.)

You can purchase DIF, when the account is at a participating bank. SVB chose not to participate in that non-FDIC program. However, SVB knew all about the program, even commenting on FDIC rule changes for it over a decade ago. [1]

Ultimately, people will have to accept that SVB wasn't as trustworthy of a guardian as some other banks. It appears that people were pushed into using SVB, because it was part of the VC ecosystem.

It's an individual CFO or Founder's decision as to whether to insure deposits or not, but claiming ignorance of the possibility is going to be ignored by a lot of others.

[1] fdic.gov/resources/regulations/federal-register-publications/2010/10c20ad66rates.pdf

Yes I mentioned DIF above, and as I said there, it's not third-party insurance that you can go purchase. What you can do is get certain accounts that automatically include it for free: https://www.difxs.com/DIF/Home.aspx

Here is the complete list of DIF-covered banks: https://www.difxs.com/DIF/DIFmemberbanks.aspx

It's a short list, they're small banks, and they all have addresses in Massachusetts. Wells Fargo and Bank of America, for example, are not on the list.

If you have an account in need of insurance in excess of the FDIC limits, you can speak with your CFO about depositor bonds or contact the appropriate party about any of the other methods in the links that were posted in this thread.

Unless you have a link for these depositor bonds, I'll remain skeptical since they weren't mentioned in your previous link, google produces nothing obvious and DIF isn't at all what you'd claimed.

You want me to google for you? You don't seem serious. Here you go anyway with 5 out of the top 6 links on the first page from Google.com. Hopefully, these links will help someone who is looking for information on how to secure their bank account.

The normal method for this insurance is to call an insurance company and ask for excess deposit insurance. This should be your first step. But, it seems very strange to me that you are beligerently asking people on the internet for financial information that you don't appear to need.

  1. Understand How a Depositor Bond Works [1]
  2. Depositor bonds for FDIC-insured deposit accounts [2]
  3. Excess Deposit Guarantee Surety Bond [3]
  4. Bond Penalty: Based on Coverage Requested Excess FDIC Limits [4]
  5. Hello old friend – The reappearance of excess deposit bonds [5]

Here is the summary copied from the first link, in case you don't want to load the link from here or from Google.

  In summary, the Depositor Bond provides a third
  party guarantee (from the insurance company who
  is called the Surety) that deposits will in fact
  be returned to the depositor.  Depositor bonds
  are designed to be “Excess FDIC Insurance
  Coverage” and coverage begins at the point where
  the $250,000 FDIC insurance obligation ends. [1] 

 

[1] https://www.depositorbonds.com/understand-how-a-depositor-bo...

[2] https://www.travelers.com/iw-documents/surety-bond/59375-dep...

[3] https://surety1.com/bond_info/excess-deposit-guarantee-suret...

[4] https://suretyone.com/bank-depository-bond

[5] https://www.cuinsight.com/hello-old-friend-the-reappearance-...

No, I can't call up my insurance company to get depositor bonds. From [2]: "Depositor bonds allow banks to offer deposit protection in excess of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance coverage to its most valued customers."

The other links say similar things. This is something banks can buy, to provide extra coverage for their customers.

People here have been arguing that SVB's customers were negligent by not purchasing their own third-party insurance. I think it's reasonable to ask them to support that argument, even if I'm not personally in the market. Supplemental insurance like that still does not appear to be available.

If you are serious about looking for solutions, you really need to consult a financial advisor who specializes in these sorts of things. They'll know where to find insurance. They'll also know of a variety of other mitigation strategies that might be better than insurance for your particular situation.