i am a new member i joined today

would someone kindly answer a question for me please

i have several accounts in the halifax bank total less than £50,000

if i open an account in another bank or building society owned by the halifax ie birmingham midshires but total savings in all accounts less than £50,000

in the event of the bank going bust would i be able to claim for all accounts and get all my money back or only one account and loose the rest ?

I'm afraid the limit is per company - so you would only be covered to up to £50,000 with any money held with the Halifax in the event of the company going bust, no matter how many accounts and how much you had in each account.

As Halifax is part of HBOS and now partly owned by the government it's hard to see the company going bust - but as part of your risk management strategy, you may want to look at spreading your money around different banks to a limit of £50,000 in each.

Hope that helps.

Brian is absolutely right.

What is worth mentioning is that before deciding what banks you should be putting your money in, you should know the relationships between the banks and be clear about who owns who!

After all, you wouldn't want to invest your money, say £50K in Halifax & £50K in Bank of Scotland then for the group to go belly up and you loose £50K.