As Oregon's U.S. Senators and Representatives are calling for thoughtful action to stabilize and calm the nation's financial markets, representative of banks, insurance companies and investment firms serving Lebanon are reassuring their customers.

Umpqua Bank is doing better than the average bank in the Northwest, said Umpqua CFO Ron Farnsworth from Portland.

The bank started reducing its exposure to residential construction loans a year ago so that as of the end of June only 8 percent of the loans in its portfolio were in the residential category.

"That's really helped us here today," he said.

Anyone whose funds are insured should not be worrying about their bank, Farnsworth said. Basically, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insures bank deposits at $100,000 per depositor per account ($200,000 for a joint account with two names on it).

Farnsworth said there are 8,500 different banks in the U.S. and at the end of June only 117 of them were on FDIC's troubled bank list. Those on the troubled list generally have a very high mix of construction loans and non-performing assets (bad loans) as well as low capitalization levels. Banks are required to maintain at least 10 percent of assets in capital. Those in trouble are below that level.

Even customers of banks that have closed have full access to their money in insured accounts, he said. The FDIC is now arranging deals for stronger banks to take over the assets of failing banks.

Credit Unions as a whole do business on a local level and are not affected as much as larger banks by the secondary loan market, said Carol Cromwell, CEO of Linn-Co Federal Credit Union. Most of its investments are in auto-secured and other collateral-secured loans tied to Linn County.

"We try to be conservative with our money," she said.

Like bank deposits, credit union deposits are insured by the FDIC.

Jeff Aeschliman, State Farm Insurance public affairs representative in Oregon, said the company remains financially strong.

State Farm is primarily a property and casualty insurance company but also has a small non-traditional banking operation.

"We believe the core of our banking and insurance operations remain solid," he said. "We haven't engaged in risky sub-prime lending practices. Of course, the stock market is affecting our investment portfolio, but we have very conservative investment practices."

Ronn Passmore, vice president of Rhodes Warden Insurance in Lebanon, said most insurance companies are not like American International Group (AIG), the international insurance and financial services organization whose bail-out by the U.S. Federal Reserve was announced last week.

AIG is different than most other insurers because it operated a financial products unit that dealt in risky mortgages. Their losses were in that unit, not their insurance business," Passmore said.

"From our perspective, it's important that people understand that what's going on in the financial industry doesn't affect insurance solvency, that the property and casualty insurance is financially strong and able to pay claims and take care of their needs," Passmore said.

State regulatory agencies continue to protect insurance policy holders.

"For us here, it's business as usual," he said.

Edward Jones financial adviser Leo Smith counsels that investors be patient, despite the up-and-down investment market.

Smith said the U.S. financial markets still are viable and resilient, and investors should look at their long-term objectives. He recommended that people broaden the diversity of their holdings if they need to and continue to buy quality stocks that are likely to recover when the market turns around.