Savings Association Insurance Fund (SAIF)

U.S. Government entity created by Congress in 1989 as part of its Savings and Loan Association bailout bill to replace the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) as the provider of deposit insurance for thrift institutions. SAIF, pronounced to rhyme with safe, was administered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) separately from its bank insurance program, called the Bank Insurance Fund (BIF). In 2005, Congress passed legislation merging the SAIF and BIF into one insurance fund called the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF). The same law also raised the federal deposit insurance level from $100,000 to $250,000 on retirement accounts and gave the FDIC the option to increase insurance ceilings on regular bank accounts from $100,000 by $10,000 a year, based on inflation, every five years thereafter starting April 1, 2010. See also Ofice of Thrift Supervision (OTS).

Deposit insurance fund operated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insuring deposits in federal savings and loan associations, federal savings banks, and state savings and loans up to $100,000 per account. The SAIF assumed the assets, liabilities, and obligations of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation for financially sound savings and loan associations and federal savings banks, under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989. After 1996, the SAIF assumed responsibility for insolvent savings and loans from the Resolution Trust Corporation.