CFPB is aware of the issue. I'm guessing that the incoming administration is not going to care about fees.
This is because you are not the customer. Your employer is the customer, they are the ones who get to choose the HSA provider for their employees. You are the goods to be sold. The HSA provider is simply harvesting profits.
"You are not the customer, you are the product" is true so often, but in many cases (like this one) it doesn't really apply.
First off, "not the customer but the product" is an inherently antagonistic relationship. Your goals are opposed to Facebook's, for instance, because you want to spend less time on the platform and you want to interact with friends and not brands, but Facebook wants the opposite of both. But with HSA administration, your goals and your employer's goals are aligned: you both want someone who will quickly and painlessly manage your account without being a pain.
Second, "not the customer but the product" implies an undisclosed, extractive payment occurring behind the scenes. TikTok is harvesting a great deal of data from you and selling it to other companies. You are the product in that your data has value. But with HSA administration, the product is just the management of your HSA money; there's no under-the-table dealing going on here (or there shouldn't be); they're getting paid by your company for their services.
Third, "not the customer but the product" relationships are entirely one-way; you have no way to impact the providing company beyond just not using their services. They do not, will not, and at some level can never care about your experience beyond making it as minimally useful to you to keep you on the platform. But that HSA provider desperately needs your company's business, so if enough of your coworkers raise a stink and get your company to complain, they will make a change.
In actuality, "not the customer but the product" ignores the unfortunate reality of most HR/payroll service companies in this case: they're just the lowest bidder, contracted at the bottom dollar to provide the cheapest services possible, because your employers don't have to use their services and don't care about your experience.
I left two cents in mine and just left it as is. I like to think that every time those pirates send me a letter telling me I have 2 cents left or send me checks which I don’t cash it costs them money.
It does cost them money, more than you have in the account.
At the very least, the USPS is getting money out of them. More than the 2¢, even.
Drain it to zero and then let them auto close it for inactivity. Or keep it open forever since there’s no admin fee.
I've had one open for years that is empty. I think they're hoping I eventually put money in it so they can drain it for the years it sat unused.
It's an HSA, keep as much as you can in it. Use it for medical if you have too. Let it become functionally an IRA when you hit 65.
Cause everything is stupid and you can't choose your own HSA, I had multiple at one point. It's easier to merge them all and close the rest so you aren't keeping track of a ton of accounts.
Edit: Also if your investing there are better or worse accounts, so moving all the money into one can help make you more money.
The admin fee is $0. Can you just transfer all of the money out and keep the account empty?
This is exactly what I do. Spend all the money out of the account and delete my login. Done this at least a couple times and I’ve never had an issue. What are they gunna do? File a bullshit claim on my credit?
Honest question: why? I’ve only been able to use an HSA once, and I thought the big advantage is that it’s your money you can keep and use whenever. Can’t you just keep using it normally, ideally save some of it?
In my case, my ex got it put in our divorce judgement that I would carry “traditional” insurance, so I knew that my HSA had no future
I had this happen a couple jobs ago - I successfully spent it down to $1, but the they wouldn’t transfer that little. I suppose I may still legally have this amount somewhere
You can always just transfer it yourself. Withdraw it from a physical location (assuming there is one) for that bank and deposit it in your own hsa account.
That schedule of fees looks like it's straight from the 1980's.
It deceives people whose idea of how things work in large companies hasn't changed since the days when it was the manager of your bank branch who decided if you you should get a loan or not.
Nowadays, for certain in middle and large size companies, all the administrative main business pathways are heavilly if not totally automated and it's customer support that ends up eating the most manpower (which is why there has been so much of a push for automated phone and chat support systems, of late using AI).
Those $25 bucks for "account closure" pays at worst for a few minutes of somebody's seeking the account from user information on a computer, cross checking that the user information matches and then clicking a button that says "Close accout" and then "Ok" on the confirmation box and the remaining 99% or so left after paying for that cost are pure profit.
No lollygagging!
Reminds me of when my ISP who was "no contract" had a cancellation fee. Like I have to pay money to stop being billed? Something about that feels very backwards.
Not to mention illegal.
Yep,
I don't consent to that charge.
Oh, it's one of our rules.
Too bad so sad, no contract.
HSAs are a misdirect to get you to ignore how shitty high deductible plans are. Never take the high deductible plan.
It depends though. If you are relatively healthy with no chronic issues (yet) and have enough saved for an emergency, it can save you a good amount of tax-free money that you can use for when you get older and sicker. That and the monthly premium is much lower than a PPO. Obviously universal healthcare is still the best option.
HSAs are also a way to get healthy people away from wanting universal health care by catering to their self interest, just like how IRAs were intended to let people with money invest in retirement which eroded support for social security.
It really depends. My company, you always do the high deductible. The OOP Max is only $5k compared to $13k for the other. The difference in premiums plus my employers contribution to the HSA are more than the difference between the two deductibles. The plans cover the same stuff. I don't really get why they're set up how they are.
My company offers something similar, but I worry it's a short term incentive to get more people onto HDPs and then quietly make that the only option.
When I was looking for a non-employer HSA, there's a lot of providers out there with not-exactly-predatory terms. All kind of fees or restrictions that you wouldn't find on other types of checking/saving/brokerage accounts. I ended up a Lively, but they added some investment/transfer fees when Schwab bought Lively's investment partner TDA.
I suspect it's partly because most HSA are determined by the employer, so someone in HR can be induced to choose a fee-laden plan if it's easier for them, and partly because the tax benefits are so great that it still makes sense even after paying a $20 junk fee here and there.
This is not mildly infuriating. This should just be illegal. Paying money to close your account is beyond infuriating
The fact that you get charged for a paper statement and that is not an opt in is more infuriating.
You don’t get it. It’s a health savings account.
They charitably contribute a whopping 0.05% APY to an account that drains to zero every year.
That's FSAs.
HSA funds continue growing so long as you aren't using them. If you're healthy and actually middle class or better they act as a 3rd retirement vehicle, since after 65 you can use it for whatever and they don't penalize you.
Exactly this, they're best used as a tax free investment account rather than anything health related. If you're on a plan with high enough a deductable to be eligible for an HSA and can afford it you should max out your HSA contributions before even a penny of unmatched 401k contributions. Personally I'd argue that you're better off maxing out the HSA and using post-tax money to pay medical expenses unless close to the end of your career. It's one of it not the single most easily taken advantage of ways to not pay tax at all on a long term investment.
The system is indeed stupid but the least you can do is take advantage of it where possible and for the middle class the HSA is one of the best ways.
I switched off of the family HSA plan after two years of paying out of pocket at the end of the term. It depends on the customer.
Regardless, the interest rates are abysmal.
You know, I can look up the definitions of HSA and FSA and things like that, and I can have the definitions right there in a document on my screen, but they still don't make any sense to me in terms of how they relate to me specifically. A lot of times they seem like they depend on me predicting things in the future that are unknowable, like my future health or how and where I will be billed for something. And that's assuming I also look up related terms like APY and deductible and figure out what those mean. If I ask any HR people they're like "just contact the provider for an explanation" and I'm like yeah, I totally want to deal with the phone menus and hold times of some faceless corporation, just to have them pull some BS like OP's talking about.
Sorry about the rant. I guess that's what I find mildly infuriating.
You're thinking of an FSA.
eyup. had this twice. so annoying that jobs don't let you choose an hsa for it to be deposited into.
I found this bullshit out too recently.
