And if all that wasn’t enough for you, Mellon has had a number of instances where people have broken in and stolen personal information files from them. Good luck getting your personal information back after it’s stolen. Simply google Mellon and personal info and you’ll see a bunch of horror stories.

HSA Bank has really high fees too. I have most of my retirement funds with Fidelity so I’m thinking I may just go with them (it’s not clear on their site that they have HSAs but they do). It’s $48/year plus $10 if you want checks, but then they open up most of their investments to you and if you have certain minimums (very high) across all your accounts they start waiving fees.

Because earnings grow tax free, I would NOT use the HSA to pay current medical expenses. I would contribute each year, invest the funds, and then wait until you retire to withdraw to pay medical expenses and Medicare insurance premiums.

HSA Investments:
Interest can be earned via several Credit Unions.
Adirondack Trust = 3.0%
Alliant CU = 2.0%
Standford Federal = 1.5% (2.5% with hi min), $15 join fee
Delta Trust = 1.9%

Mutual Funds:
Watch your investment choices. MANY HSA offered mutual funds have very high Loads (i.e. commissions). Optuum (UHC), and Discover are two examples of accounts that only use very high commission mutual funds.

MyHSA.com (Alliance) offers four no load investment portfolios (Charles Schwab). $4.50/mn fee ($108/yr).
HSAadministrators.com offers 22 no load Vanguard funds. $20 to open account, $39/yr fee + .0008 of the value of your investments.

I am leaning towards either Adirondack Trust or HSAadministrators.

One frequently cited explanation for this is that the primary purpose behind the HSA is to pay medical and other health-related expenses, the need for which often occurs unexpectedly over time. So mutual funds, which are typically viewed as a long term investment vehicle, are believed to be not well suited as the basis for a mechanism to pay for “random” health care needs. But it’s not clear to me that this argument is dispositive on the HSA matter.

Here is a direct link to their website:
http://www.delta-trust.com/con.....s_hsa.html

When I have called with a question, a REAL person usually answers…not a voice system. The only caveat I have is that I have not had to request withdrawing money from them yet, so I don’t know how easy/difficult that is.

So now I am out $140.00 because some one of something at Mellon said I did not sign the checks that I signed. Mellon please pay for your mistakes and don’t make your customers pay for them, or soon you will not longer have any customers.

Also bring jobs back home to America and ditch the off shore CR reps, the cost savings is not worth the aggravation to your customers.

May be fees involved so be sure to ask. Also, may behoove you to transfer from bank to bank as opposed to getting them to cut you a check and you deposit to new bank. IRS generally likes for money to never touch your hands. Shocking I know.

So why not print that on mailed statements, or make it available in the online FAQ, or in the recorded phone info, or in response to my initial email or when I first told the CSR I wanted to change my address (before 2 minutes of reauthentication) …?

I am definitely moving, Space Coast Credit Union seems like a good option too.

It must be designated as an HSA account. It cannot be a regular checking or savings account.

just make sure that you get all of your allowed contribution in for the year. You have until 4/15th of next year to make your contributions. Especially true if you can not make a deductible IRA contribution as this contribution is deductible!

The HSA account is managed by http://www.smart-hsa.com. There is a $6.50/mo fee that our employer pays (we have no choice but to take the high-deductible health care plan, so I guess that’s why they pay the fee for us), and the minimum to start investing is $500, but I never got to that point because I sucked the money out pretty much as soon as it was deposited to help pay off the $1500 deductible that I’d already hit in January of last year.

Anyway, I don’t know how the smart-hsa.com plan compares to anyone else’s but I have had no problem with the account at all – using a debit card or requesting a fund transfer. All very easy to do online.

It is Anthem (previously LUMENOS) under Blue Cross Blue Shield. The premiums are about 1/3 of the cost of traditional health insurance, i.e. than the PPO or the regular Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance.

Our employer puts $2000 every July 1 into a Health Savings Account for us (which accumulates year over year). All preventive care is paid for at 100% without any copays.

All other medical care (besides preventative) comes out of that $2000 per year (the account accumulates fter a few years).

If you spend your entire HSA … then there is a bridge of $1600 that you would be responsible for, than it goes to traditional insurance.

The amount we save in premiums in each year is about $1200. After 4-5 years we have never spent the entire HSA ($2000 per year accumulated) amount. Even if we did, we would only “lose” $400 … because the savings in premiums will offset the other $1200 of the “Bridge” amount.

The best part of all … now we have a reason to ask an extra question or two about the costs of the medical care, the prescriptions, the cost / benefits of the doctor’s prescribed course of treatment. This gives us a greater understanding of the choices and keeps our medical costs down. They have even found that for I think it was about 20% of their Lumenos customers, people made changes to their lifestyles in order to save money on medical costs.

Good luck with your search!

They are paired with TDAmeritrade, so you invest through them and have the option to buy anything that is available at Ameritrade.

It would be nice if you could do online transfers to your bank instead of writing yourself a check. If it weren’t for the company contribution, I would probably turn elsewhere.

Since it’s a credit union, make a $15 donation (tax-deductible) to the Friends of Palo Alto library to become eligible

What you don’t use in the account can be retained and treated like an IRA, but since it’s health account first and foremost, you don’t want to get too fancy and tie it up either.

It’s my understanding that the money can be used for soft medical costs too, like non-prescription meds, vision and dental, and virtually anything health related, even if it isn’t prescribed by a doctor.

1. I have never dealt with another HSA custodian before.

2. I have a small amount in my HSA and can only take advantage of the savings feature at this time. I have to have $2000 to begin investing. The investment options are limited, but I cannot comment for or against them at this time.

Generally though, I really like the idea of an HSA. My wife and I are healthy people, so a high deductible plan is ideal for us. Meanwhile, I am saving in my HSA before taxes, interest earns tax-free, and I am not taxed on medical expenses. It is the tri-facto of tax goodness!

Also, the company I work for contributes free money twice a month. It’s great!