Right on Ari. IRA's are not insured. It is the choice of investment that may be insured. This confuses many investors, especially those who have invested in bank CD's. It is assumed that the account and the CD are one and the same. Think of your IRA as a bucket. The bucket is to be filled with something. If you put a CD in there the CD insured. If you put an equity mutual fund in there the mutual fund is not. As for the annuities, no they are not FDIC insured, as I'll assume you are referring to. But are they insured? It depends on the type of annuity. Annuities are not insurance but effectively, if they provide some form of guarantee on the principal or income, like a death benefit or a lifetime payout, are insured to the terms of the contract by the issuing insurance company and may have the backing of your state Guaranty Association. If it is a variable annuity with no death benefit and no guarantee to principal or income then you are on your own. Many fixed deferred annuities guarantee the principal and interest. Fixed Immediate annuities guarantee income for the time period specified in the contract. FDIC insurance is safest due to the Federal Governments ability to meet it's obligations through creating money out of thin air. For everybody else the "insurance" is based upon the claims paying ability of the insurance company. Shop wisely if you decide to invest in an annuity.

Hi Heath60 - I found this statement on ameriprise.com

"Retirement accounts, sometimes called qualified accounts, are also covered by FDIC insurance. All retirement accounts such as IRAs, SIMPLEs, SEPs and Keogh accounts owned by the same person in the same FDIC-insured institution are added together and the total is insured up to $250,000."

The key point here is that all of your retirement accounts are added together to come up with that 250k number. So if you are over that it may be worth spreading out your investments over a few different places.

Actually, the answer is...it depends. If you hold FDIC-insured products in a Roth or Traditional IRA (anywhere), then the products are insured but not the IRA itself.

If you chose to hold mutual funds, stocks, options or anything else, then its up to you and the market!