Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Banks in Nevada and Illinois were seized by regulators, bringing this year’s tally to 16, as tumbling home prices and surging unemployment caused more borrowers to fall behind on loan payments.

Security Savings Bank of Henderson, Nevada, and Heritage Community Bank of Glenwood, Illinois, with combined assets of $471.2 million, were shut by state regulators and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was named receiver, the FDIC said yesterday. Bank of Nevada in Las Vegas is assuming Security Savings’ $175.2 million in deposits, while Heritage Community’s $218.6 million will go to MB Financial Bank of Chicago.

“Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship to retain their deposit insurance coverage,” the FDIC said.

As regulators wrap up the busiest month for bank failures since 1993, they’re preparing to replenish the FDIC’s insurance fund, which dwindled by 45 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous three months to $18.9 billion. The FDIC said it will charge U.S. banks a one-time assessment and increase other fees amid estimates that bank closures could cost the fund $65 billion through 2013.

The FDIC shuttered 25 banks in 2008, including Washington Mutual Inc., the biggest U.S. bank to fail last year, and IndyMac Bank Inc., the second-largest. The 10 banks closed in February were in Oregon, California, Florida, Nebraska, Illinois, and Georgia and Nevada as foreclosures rose across the country.

Deposit Insurance

“We’re taking steps today to ensure that the deposit insurance system remains sound,” FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said yesterday during FDIC’s board meeting at the agency’s Washington headquarters.

The one-time emergency fee of 20 cents per $100 in insured deposits would be collected in the third quarter and would generate $15 billion, according to FDIC staff members. In December, the FDIC said it would double premiums banks pay in an effort to replenish the fund. First-quarter premiums were increased by 7 cents for each $100 of insured deposits to rates ranging from 12 cents to 14 cents per $100 at most banks.

Closing Security Savings and Heritage Community will cost the insurance fund an estimated $100.7 million, the FDIC said.

The number of banks on the FDIC’s “problem list” rose 47 percent to 252 in the quarter. The FDIC doesn’t divulge the banks’ names.

The FDIC regulates banks and insures deposits at 8,305 institutions with $13.9 trillion in assets. As many as 1,000 U.S. banks may fail in the next three to five years as losses mount on commercial real estate loans, RBC Capital Markets analysts said in a Feb. 9 report.

Banking Losses

The U.S. banking industry posted its first quarterly loss since the savings-and-loan crisis, losing $26.2 billion in the last three months of 2008. Financial firms worldwide have posted more than $1.1 trillion in losses and writedowns since 2007 on soured loans and related securities. Unemployment climbed to 7.6 percent in December from 7.2 percent the previous month, and housing prices in 20 U.S. cities declined 18.5 percent from a year earlier, the fastest drop on record.

The FDIC is selling loans held by failed banks at a discount to entice buyers amid fears of increased losses as the recession worsens. Through Feb. 20, the assets of four community banks had been sold this year to healthier rivals at a combined discount of $107 million, the FDIC said, compared with only one such deal last year.

MB Financial agreed to acquire $230.5 million of Heritage Community’s assets at a discount of $14.5 million. Bank of Nevada is purchasing $111.3 million of Security Savings’ assets.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Levy in San Francisco at alevy5@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 28, 2009 00:00 EST