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I don't think individual deposit holders technically have a legal contract with the FDIC. Are you sure? Do you have any sources on that?

You are right in practice that the FDIC guarantees small deposits.

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You are right. There is no legal contract, it's an insurance policy. In practice this is as good as having a legal contract is what I meant.

In practice it's probably better than a legal contract for a small time depositor in some ways, because there's lots of political pressure on FDIC to make good on that.

If it was just a legal contract, in the worst case you'd have to sue to hold them to account.

(On the other hand, politics can change from one day to the next; but contracts are harder to unilaterally change.)

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