I have been trading with IB for about a year and a half without a backup broker. This may seem foolhardy to some, but for the way I trade I think it is best. I don't enter any single trade in such a way that losing connection to IB would devastate my account. I benefit more by being able to use all of my capital - rather than having a portion of it sit idle at another broker - than I would by being able to close my position on those rare occasions when IB is down. Obviously this would not be the case for some styles, but I am sure I have profited more by using my capitol than I would have by avoiding the few small losses that I have incurred because of outages (although when they happen I get very frustrated).