IIS-3 insurance: protection against a broker's bankruptcy, not against losses on securities

IIS insurance is the everyday name for the guarantee scheme that has been in force since 1 January 2026. If the broker or asset manager that maintains the account is declared bankrupt and takes part in the scheme, the IIS Guarantee Fund pays the holder compensation of up to RUB 1.4m. The protection is tied to the insolvency of the intermediary and to nothing else: a fall in the price of securities is not a guarantee event. A broker's participation in the scheme is voluntary, so the fact that an account has been opened does not yet mean that it is protected.

This is about the new-style account that has been opened since 1 January 2024. The law gives it no number, but in everyday use it is called IIS-3, or the third-type IIS. The deductions, the term and the restrictions of this account are covered in the piece on how the third-type IIS works. The question here is narrower: what happens when trouble strikes not the securities but the organisation that maintains the account.

The guarantee event: bankruptcy of whoever maintains the account

Every account has an intermediary. It is either a broker, which executes the holder's orders, or an asset manager, which disposes of the assets under a discretionary management agreement. The guarantee scheme answers a single question: what the holder will receive if this intermediary goes bankrupt.

In the glossary this threat is called counterparty risk: the loss arises not because the asset has become cheaper, but because the other party to the contract has stopped meeting its obligations. The compensation mechanism for this case has been in force since 1 January 2026, which means that accounts opened in 2024 and 2025 are older than the scheme itself.

The payment is made neither by the broker itself nor by the deposit insurance system, but by a separate IIS Guarantee Fund. The amount is capped: RUB 1.4m is the ceiling on compensation, not a sum due to everyone.

What the guarantee leaves with the account holder

The price of securities. A fall in price is not a guarantee event. This is market risk, and it is the same for a security held on an IIS and for the same security held on any other account: the guarantee scheme has no effect on it.

The issuer's solvency. The guarantee event is defined through the bankruptcy of the intermediary, so a missed payment on a bond falls outside it by definition. This is the credit risk of the issuer, not of the broker, and it materialises regardless of where the account is held. We keep a chronology of such events in the feed of bond defaults and technical defaults. Securities of Russian issuers are what is bought on an IIS-3, so the feed covers the very market whose issues end up on such an account.

The amount above the ceiling. There is no annual cap on contributions to the account itself; only the deduction is limited. This means the account can outgrow the compensation ceiling, both through top-ups and through growth in the securities. The IIS-3 calculator shows a year-by-year calculation for given contributions; comparing the result with the compensation ceiling is a question the holder answers for themselves.

Why this is not deposit insurance

The word "insurance" invites an analogy with a bank deposit, and the analogy misleads. A deposit is a loan to the bank: the amount and the interest are known in advance, and the deposit insurance system reimburses the deposit within RUB 1.4m. It is about deposits, not investment accounts, and the IIS is not part of it.

There are several differences of substance. The first is what is protected: with a deposit it is a monetary claim on the bank for a known amount, with an IIS it is an account whose value changes along with securities prices, and the guarantee does not fix that value. The second is who pays: for an IIS it is the IIS Guarantee Fund, which is separate from the deposit insurance system. The third is participation: for a broker it is voluntary, and the question "is my intermediary in the scheme" is something the holder has to ask for themselves.

Both ceilings are given in this piece, and they can be compared directly. But even identical figures would not make the two systems the same: their guarantee events, their payers and the objects they protect are different. How a deposit differs from a security with a similar yield is covered in the piece "Deposit versus bond", and the "Deposit vs OFZ" calculator lets you work out the difference on your own inputs.

Voluntary participation changes the order of the questions

Since joining the scheme is the broker's own decision, protection becomes a property not of the account as such but of the pair "account and intermediary". Whether a particular organisation takes part, and what confirms this, is determined by the fund's rules and by the contract. What to look for in the contract before signing is described in the piece on how to open an IIS-3 and transfer it to another broker, and the general sequence of checks on an intermediary is set out in the article "How to choose a broker".

If the intermediary does not take part in the scheme, the holder is left with actions that have opposite consequences for the tax benefits. Transferring the account to another broker or management company is possible without losing the term. Closing it before the minimum term takes the benefits away: the deductions already refunded will have to be returned to the budget with late-payment interest. This mechanism is covered in the piece on closing an IIS early.

At the same time, the law allows a person to hold three accounts, and they are counted across all brokers and asset managers together. How the compensation ceiling is calculated when there are several accounts (per account, per intermediary or per person) is something this piece does not assert: the answer lies in the current wording of the law and in the fund's rules.

What is determined by the fund's rules and the contract, not by this article

Some of the questions that come up first cannot be settled with a general phrase, and we do not settle them. On these, the current wording of the law, the fund's rules and the contract with the intermediary need to be checked:

• what is included in the compensated amount (cash, securities or both) and at what valuation;
• within what period and in what order the fund pays;
• what confirms the intermediary's participation in the scheme as of the date of bankruptcy;
• whether the protection extends to old-type accounts that have not been converted into an IIS-3;
• what happens to the term of the account and to deductions already received if the intermediary has gone bankrupt.

A question separate from the guarantee is how the securities themselves are recorded. The rights to them are recorded on a custody account, and how that record works is explained in the piece "The depository: where your securities are actually held".

When what is said here stops being true

Everything described applies to an intermediary that takes part in the scheme. For an account with an organisation outside the scheme there is no payment from the fund, and the sections above do not apply to such an account.

The compensation ceiling and the payment rules are a legal norm that the legislator is entitled to change. The figures in the text are given as of the date the piece was prepared; after that, it is the current wording that needs to be read.

For someone worried about a drawdown in the portfolio rather than the fate of the broker, the guarantee adds nothing: that is a different risk, and it is the composition of the securities that answers for it. And anyone who is still choosing the form of account will find a comparison of terms in the piece on the IIS and an ordinary brokerage account.

That leaves the questions only the holder can answer: what part of their account fits within the compensation ceiling, and whether the party entrusted with that account takes part in the scheme.