It should be noted that "a lot of money" in this context means more than whatever limit your country has on deposit insurance. In the US, up to $250k is insured

It should be noted that "a lot of money" in this context means more than whatever limit your country has on deposit insurance. In the US, up to $250k is insured by the government against default, and it goes per account type and per bank, so you could easily store, say, $2M fully insured. But of course, this does not insure you against systemic risks. When the financial system in Iceland broke down, depositor insurance meant nothing. Another popular way of storing large amounts of money over long time, is to invest in real estate. Buy apartments in central Paris, London, New York. Very small risk that you lose anything, especially in real terms, if you can keep a cool head about when to sell. Downside is that these are not liquid assets.