I recently opened a checking account and was surprised that they were going to add an additional five hundred in my account for 'cushioning' just in case I inadvertantly overdrew my account. This way there would be no returned checks to the businesses. But the bank does make out, b/c instead of me paying the business an overdraft fee, the bank actually gets it, b/c they covered the check. I don't intentionally write bad checks so for me this was an advantage and it gives me the peace of mind knowing that if something did go wrong, I'd be covered.