There are so many emotions that come along with new parenthood. Whether it’s your first babe, or you’ve been around the block before, it just doesn’t matter. I’m convinced you can never be fully prepared for the wave of emotion that will overtake you: love, worry, joy, concern… all rolled into one.
If you’ve been following along with us for a while, you’ll know that I’m a planner. It’s my default setting. In fact, one of the ways I tend to deal with stress, or intense emotion, is by planning. By taking control of the things I can plan and understand, I invariably feel better and able to embrace the chaos and the unknown!
So, when we go through a (stressful and exciting!) major life transitions (when we got married, bought a house, had each of our kiddos… etc.) one of the first things we do as a family is sit down and look at our financial investments. We’ve worked hard over time to build a sound and secure financial base for our family, and making sure I understand the safety and security of those investments before we walk through major life changes is a huge source of comfort for me (I know, I know… moderately neurotic. But I swear it’s helpful!!!).
That’s where the CDIC comes is. If you’re Canadian, this info is for you.
I’m going to break this down a little bit, because I think it’s absolutely worth knowing – and hopefully brings some sense of comfort for you too! The Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (the CDIC) is federal Crown corporation that provides stability to the Canadian financial market by providing deposit insurance against the loss of eligible deposits at member institutions. That’s a lot of heavy wording that means they work to insure specific investments, so you don’t lose your money!
Once I sorted out all the types of investments covered by the CDIC, I could better understand the overall risk of our current portfolio, and make sure our whole family was comfortable with that level of risk!
Curious about what the CDIC currently covers? Here’s a snapshot:
- Savings accounts
- Chequing accounts
- Term deposits, (such as GICs) with original terms to maturity of five years or less
- Debentures issued to evidence deposits by CDIC member institutions (other than banks)
- Money orders and bank drafts issued by CDIC members
- Cheques certified by CDIC members
If you’re anything like me, and want to dig into the details a bit further (including which types of investments aren’t covered, full lists of CDIC member institutions, or just more about deposit insurance in general) check out the CDIC website. It’s a fabulous resource, and super easy to understand.
I hope my neurotic research tendencies have helped some of you out, and tell me (if only to make me feel better), do you take the opportunity to do a mini financial audit before major life changes too? Or are you more of a take-it-as-it-comes kind of folk?
NOTE: We partnered with the CDIC to write this post and received compensation to do so. But all of our opinions (and all the tales of my craziness) are of course 100% our own!
