No. of Recommendations: 2
I can't say I've thought about this much although I recall a discussion over at TMF about SIPC. Apparently if your accounts are different types then each account is insured up to $500K. For example, IRA, Roth, taxable.
I know most brokerages also carry separate insurance for much more but I don't know how robust that is, or all of the details.
tdameritrade.com - Account protection
The combined total of our SIPC coverage and our "excess SIPC" coverage means TD Ameritrade provides protection up to a combined return of $152 million per customer, up to $2 million of which may be in cash. The Excess SIPC program has a $500M aggregate limit (meaning the most the program will pay for the Excess SIPC portion of the losses). Commodity interests and cash in futures accounts are not protected by SIPC.
I'm guessing based on the size of these brokerages an aggregate of $500M wouldn't go far since that is only about 500 $1.5M accounts.
