PDIC Deposit Insurance Calculator

Almost everyone knows the PDIC number, ₱500,000, and almost no one reads the three words attached to it. The coverage is "per depositor, per bank," and that phrase, not the amount, is what determines whether a careful saver is fully protected or quietly exposed. The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation operates under its charter, RA 3591, and the ₱500,000 ceiling was set by the 2009 amendment, RA 9576.

"Per depositor, per bank" means your accounts get added up

The mistake I see most is treating each account as separately insured. It is not. Within a single bank, all the deposits held under your name are added together first, and the ₱500,000 cap applies to that combined total. If you keep ₱300,000 in savings and a ₱400,000 time deposit at the same bank, that is ₱700,000 under one name, and only ₱500,000 is insured. The remaining ₱200,000 is exposed if the bank fails. Opening a second account at the same bank does nothing; the cap is per bank, not per account.

The fix is boring and effective: spread balances across different banks. The same ₱700,000 split as ₱350,000 in two separate PDIC-member banks is fully covered, because each bank gives you its own ₱500,000 ceiling. This is the entire practical point of the rule, and it is why people with larger cash positions hold deposits at several institutions rather than one.

Digital banks count, investment products do not

A worry I get often is whether money in a digital bank is real or play money. The digital banks operating here are licensed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and are PDIC-member banks, so balances in Maya Bank, SeaBank, GoTyme, and the rest are insured up to the same ₱500,000, on the same per-depositor-per-bank basis. You can confirm a bank's standing through the BSP.

The sharper edge case is what PDIC does not touch. Its insurance covers deposits. It does not cover investment products, even when a bank is the one selling them to you. Money you put into a UITF, a mutual fund, government bonds, or an insurance product through your bank is not a deposit and carries no PDIC guarantee. People assume "it is with my bank, so it is insured," and that assumption is exactly wrong for these products. They may be perfectly sound investments, but their safety rests on the issuer and the market, not on PDIC.

How are joint accounts insured?

A joint account is treated separately from your individual accounts at the same bank, with its own coverage. As a general rule the insured amount on a joint account is shared among the co-owners, typically split equally unless the records say otherwise, and each co-owner's share is then added to whatever they hold individually for the per-depositor computation. The upshot is that joint accounts can extend total household coverage, but not without limit.

Do I have to apply to get insured?

No. Deposit insurance is automatic for every account in a PDIC-member bank; there is no enrollment, no premium charged to you, and nothing to file in advance. If an insured bank closes, PDIC pays valid deposit claims up to the ₱500,000 limit. Your only job in advance is to keep your balances within the per-bank ceiling and your bank records accurate.

If you want a grounded, local primer on where deposit safety fits in a broader plan — emergency fund first, then where to put the rest — a book I genuinely recommend is Randell Tiongson's No Nonsense Personal Finance. It is written for Filipinos, refreshingly free of get-rich hype, and it frames the deposit-versus-investment distinction this guide leans on.

If any figure or rule here drifts from the current PDIC charter as amended, that is mine to fix, not yours to absorb. Flag it through the about page. To see exactly how your accounts aggregate against the ceiling, the PDIC insurance calculator does the per-bank math for you.

• PDIC Insurance Calculator
• Digital Bank Interest Calculator
• Retail Treasury Bond Calculator

Sources

• PDIC Charter (RA 3591)
• PDIC Charter amendment raising coverage to ₱500,000 (RA 9576)
• Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas — list of supervised banks

Changelog

• 2026-06-18 — Added a recommended personal-finance reference and this sources section.
• 2026-06-01 — Initial publication.