Our life&#x27;s savings are not unique, and can be replenished from a different source. Our childhood pictures and personal correspondence are, and generally can not.<p>Besides, banks are subject to rather a lot of external control, through regulation (oh noes!). Here in NL the government actually guarantees your savings (but not investments) should a bank go belly-up. I believe the US did something similar, although I didn&#x27;t bother to follow the specifics about who bailed out who for whom.