Back in the 70's, during that housing collapse, several banks in Okla went under. To my knowledge, none of the depositers actually lost money. How did your friend lose money? Often another bank will buy the sinking one. I THINK the way it works is the buyer gets the assets and the liabilities and the FICA (you and me) makes up the difference. The assets may be frozen for a few days during the transition but then it's biz as usual. I had a friend that went thru 3 banks that way.