Before investing any funds in a bank or credit union first make sure you can verify they are federally insured.  A bank will have an FDIC# that you can look up here and a credit union will have a Charter# that you can look up here.

Once you have verified the institution is federally insured use the FDICs EDIE program if it is a bank or if it is a credit union use the NCUAs program to make sure all of your funds are insured.  I recently tested both systems and they showed that a husband and wife with three qualifying beneficiaries could have up to $700,000 of insurance.