Has anyone ever lost money over the FDIC limit?

In the last 10+ years it is extremely rare to lose money when a bank fails, but it does happen.

Here some information from a bank that failed in 2020 but most people avoided losses:

Details of The First State Bank Failure

According to this FDIC press release, “The First State Bank had approximately $152.4 million in total assets and $139.5 million in total deposits. In addition to assuming all of the deposits, MVB Bank agreed to purchase approximately $147.2 million of The First State Bank's assets. The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later disposition.”

Only Uninsured Brokered Deposits May Be At Risk

All deposits that were directly held at the failed bank, even those above the FDIC limits, were transferred to the new bank as described in the FDIC’s FAQs:

"No one lost any money on deposit as a result of the closure of this bank. All of the deposits, regardless of dollar amount, were transferred to MVB Bank, other than the Cede & Co. deposits which will be returned to them."

Both insured and uninsured deposits that were directly held at The First State Bank were transferred to MVB Bank. Thus, even depositors who had over the insurance limits had no loss in this failure. However, brokered deposits managed by Cede & Co. were not assumed by MVB Bank. Consequently, there is a possibility that someone may have lost money on a portion of their brokered deposits that exceeded the FDIC coverage limits. It demonstrates that uninsured brokered deposits are more at risk than uninsured deposits directly held at a bank.

But sometimes people do lose money if they are over the limit:

The Texas Department of Banking closed The Enloe State Bank on Friday according to an FDIC press release. The FDIC then arranged for Legend Bank, N.A. to assume the insured deposits. This is the first bank to fail since December 2017. The Enloe State Bank was small with only one branch, $36.7 million in assets and $31.3 million in deposits.

Between 2009 and 2017, it has been typical for the FDIC to arrange for another bank to acquire the failed bank and to assume all deposits, even those above the insurance limits. The FDIC did find another bank to acquire The Enloe State Bank, but the acquirer only agreed to assume insured deposits. This means that depositors who had over the insurance limits may lose those uninsured deposits. According to the FDIC, “there were approximately $500,000 that exceeded FDIC insurance limits.”

The limit used to be lower, it was only 100K back before the 2008 recession. They upped the amount to make sure that people were not worried that they would exceed the limit if they pulled funds out of the stock market.

There are cases when customers put their money into an account that isn't covered by the FDIC insurance. The bank should let them know the risk, but sometimes people ignore or miss the warnings.

The biggest risk for most people is that during the transition time it can be hard to get funds for a few days. Plus the need to change automatic transactions, get a new debit card...

Back in the 1980's there were problems with savings and loans, and their collapse cost people their money because the state run insurance funds were insufficient. Even if a person didn't lose funds they lost access to their money for weeks or longer. I was in college when this started and I remember the stories on the news about people trying to get access to any money to pay their rent.