what bank do you use as your HSA provider?

[knaidel]

My husband's firm (we have insurance through them) sent out a spreadsheet with a selection of "preferred" HSA providers. They ALL have fees! Some of them waive the fee with a minimum balance, but there's no way we're keeping a $1500 (or higher) minimum balance in there on a regular basis.

I did a google search, but much of the information I came up with is old. Anyone have a no-fee or low-fee HSA? I am assuming that banks charge maintenance fees for HSAs because they don't really make any money off of them (ie- most people are not bouncing checks and stuff on their HSA).

[ett]

Our HSA is with Chase. I don't recall there ever being any fees taken out. Our balance is usually 0 or pretty low because we have tons of medical bills.

[o_mom]

Ours is Fifth-Third. There are no fees, but I'm not sure if that is because DH's company has an agreement or the balance. We actually do try to keep a fairly good balance in there so that when we have large bills the money is available. Our goal is to get it up to our OOP maximum so that if were were to hit it in a year, we are covered with pre-tax dollars. We have not quite made it there, but had some pretty high bills this year that brought it down.

[KDsMommy]

My HSA is with Wells Fargo and I've never been charged a fee.

[knaidel]

argh, that's funny, because all of those banks mentioned are on the spreadsheet of preferred providers from the firm. They are all charging fees! $4, $3.50, and $2.95.

I wonder if any of you were 1)grandfathered in without fees OR 2) your firm pays the fee?

Hmmm....

We bank with PNC. They have a very high fee for HSAs, close to $4 a month. There is no way we will keep the balance of $3000 in there to avoid the fee. I called and asked if they could waive the fee as a current customer of the bank. Nothing doing.

I really don't want to be cheap and make a big deal about this. But it just seems silly to pay such a high fee for a bank account that can have a maximum contribution of something like $6100 for 2013! and seeing how many bills we have (upcoming delivery, ongoing therapy and OT for DS, etc.....) there is often so little in there, it seems ridiculous to pay $40 a year.

It's not like I'm paying my wealth manager to manage a trust fund or something with $750K in it!

[AnnieW625]

We pay $2.50 a month each to be in the FSA, and the FSA is administered by ASI Flex. Our employer (state of CA) takes that money directly out of our pay check and it is tax free. DH and I both get charged this so our yearly cost next year will be $60. I don't really complain about it because I know we'll save more than $60 per year by doing this. We are doing both medical, and daycare expenses. We turn in the receipts after we have paid for services, and then we are reimbursed by check, and we can put the money in the checking or savings account of our choice. We anticipate that we will use one credit card for all of these expenses and then just make sure that we submit our receipts as quickly as possible so we will have the money by the time the bill is due. I kind of wish though we had a card from a bank where we could just charge the account, but I guess the way they do it now is one way to keep costs down so I am okay with it.

[knaidel]

right, FSAs without fees are the norm.

I'm looking for an HSA-- where the money can roll over from year to year. Ha-- it rarely does.

[Tenasparkl]

I use HSA Bank. They have a fee of $2.50 per month. There was also a fee to get checks (instead of just a debit card).

[belovedgandp]

Through DH's employer ours is with BMO/Harris. No fee, but no idea if that's because they were our only choice at the time and the employer arranged it?

This is our first year with an HSA and we put in about twice what I expect our expenses to be with our high deductible plan with the hope being to get the fund at our year maximum and leave it sit there as a cushion. We should be there in two or three years and then I'll drop back to just putting in enough to cover our expected expenses.

But based on my customer service experiences with BMO I wouldn't recommend them. I've had ridiculously long waits for phone calls, website service issues and a phone rep that tried to direct me to the fdic.gov website for an HSA question.

[saleenl]

We just went through this and the only no-fee HSAs that I found were through credit unions. We had an old credit union account out of state and I called them up and they sent me paperwork. It was pretty painless to set up and free - no fees for checks or a debit card.

[knaidel]

. I've had ridiculously long waits for phone calls, website service issues and a phone rep that tried to direct me to the fdic.gov website for an HSA question.


shock! is there an emoticon for a mouth dropping open?


Hmm, thanks all for the replies and suggestions. Of course, it would be that our credit union doesn't offer an HSA! I will look into switching to another credit union and keep shopping around.

Am I crazy to spend all this time to save $4 a month?

[lmr1101]

I'm in the health insurance industry and we always suggest people use HSA Bank. They are an online company set up just for hsa accounts. They really know their stuff and have great customer service.
They do charge $2.50/month and there are extra fees for checks, replacing debit cards, etc but they are upfront about those fees so you will easily see how to avoid those.

[belovedgandp]

shock! is there an emoticon for a mouth dropping open?


Hmm, thanks all for the replies and suggestions. Of course, it would be that our credit union doesn't offer an HSA! I will look into switching to another credit union and keep shopping around.

Am I crazy to spend all this time to save $4 a month?

On the fdic.gov thing I literally just hung up on her. It was all I could do. I was so frustrated at that point in time. It was a simple matter that I should have been able to handle myself on-line if their service was up or remotely informative. I eventually did find what I needed myself and was kind of kicking myself for not calling back to report the bad rep to the company.