Is your bank FDIC insured? It's easy to find out

— -- Q: I have cash saved in an ING Direct savings account. How secure is the bank?

A: During times of concern over the health of financial institutions, many investors begin to wonder about the banks holding their cash.

This can be a positive exercise and a great chance to make sure you have faith and confidence in your financial institutions.

Thanks to the Internet, checking out banks is easy and free. You want to make sure your bank is a member of FDIC, or Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. This organization helps protect account holders by backing up to $100,000 in each account at a bank. If you have money at a bank, it's in your best interest to make sure it is an FDIC member.

To do this, go to www.fdic.gov. Click on the "bank find" link on the right-hand side of the page under "Consumer Resources." Type "Ing" in the search blank and click the find button. You'll do a lot of scrolling or you can jump to page 53 to find ING Bank. Now, you can rest assured ING Bank is a member of the FDIC, so you get the agency's protections for ING's savings products, but not its Sharebuilder stock products.

Matt Krantz is a financial markets reporter at USA TODAY and author of Investing Online for Dummies. He answers a different reader question every weekday in his Ask Matt column at money.usatoday.com. To submit a question, e-mail Matt at mkrantz@usatoday.com. Click here to see previous Ask Matt columns.