Question Can a HSA Charge a Monthly Maintenance Fee if Your Balance Falls Below 3K?

[Barbisi]

My husband's new company HSA card issued by hsabank automatically charges a $1.75 monthly maintenance fee if your daily total balance ever falls below $3000. Additionally, there are charges for monthly mailed (printed) statements ($1.50) but these are free on-line if you opt- out of the paper ones and an account closure fee ($25).Talk about a nickel and diming rip-off!!!!!
Does this sound legit, justbroke and shipo ? Is this even legal?
How are you supposed to maintain a balance of 3k+ if you are using your HSA funds to pay for medical visits on a regular basis?
Should we even use the HSA at all to avoid these fees? How would you financial gurus handle these charges?
Thanks in advance!

[justbroke]

Mine is through Fidelity and they've never charged me a dime for the debit card and my balance is definitely below $3,000 (as I don't really even use it any longer). (I don't even like logging in to Fidelity because... I don't want to know what's going on in the world.)

To answer your question... from what I understand, monthly account maintenance fees are contractually fine. Most of these HSA account depositories will waive the monthly fee if you maintain a minimum balance.

I think an HSA is still a good away to avoid taxes on those qualified amounts spent using the account. That's the whole purpose of the HSA. If the value of having the HSA (annually) is not worth 12 X $1.75 (or about $21/year), then I would say to get rid of it. But, if you do the math, you're likely saving more than $21/year in personal income taxes, so the fee would be offset.

That's my little investment tidbit for the day.

[shipo]

Yes, totally legit. Are the charges nice? Nope. Are they legal? Yes.

When I changed jobs last year I rolled my existing HSA money over into the HSA plan for my new company and got hit with $50 worth of fees for the closure and the transfer. As for keeping a high balance, yeah, that can be a challenge, especially over the last year following the dog attack, my HSA was over $10,000 about a year ago, now I'm struggling to keep it above $1,000.

[sophieanne]

Every HSA asdministrator can charge different fees and it’s legal. Can’t remember who the last administrator was (Optum I believe).. definitely charged monthly maintenance fees. The company switched to Bank of America in 2020 and the fees stopped.

[Barbisi]

Thank you all!
My husband had Fidelity with R. and Benefit Wallet with LM in Colorado and neither charged anything for maintenance and now in Washington his current company has hsabank which imposes these fees, so I'm guessing his employer is to blame because they don't want to pay these annoying monthly premiums, and they're passing them on to their employees.
justbroke of course you're right, $20+ per year isn't much of a charge for an HSA, but I still resent new charges that we didn't have before, shipo ,that was quite a large HSA fund (10k) and how terrible all those medical bills must have been to barely have $1000 in there now! You should win a hefty payout/ settlement from the dog owners when your case goes to court!
sophieanne, who knows , maybe this company will switch to BoA too!

[shipo]

Thank you all!
My husband had Fidelity with R. and Benefit Wallet with LM in Colorado and neither charged anything for maintenance and now in Washington his current company has hsabank which imposes these fees, so I'm guessing his employer is to blame because they don't want to pay these annoying monthly premiums, and they're passing them on to their employees.
justbroke of course you're right, $20+ per year isn't much of a charge for an HSA, but I still resent new charges that we didn't have before, shipo ,that was quite a large HSA fund (10k) and how terrible all those medical bills must have been to barely have $1000 in there now! You should win a hefty payout/ settlement from the dog owners when your case goes to court!
sophieanne, who knows , maybe this company will switch to BoA too!

We'll see regarding any kind of settlement, here in New Hamster, the "Live Free or Die" state, such settlements are notoriously low, and the older you are, the lower they get; given I'm now in the land of the "Over-65s", I'm not expecting much; hopefully I'll be surprised. In many ways, I didn't help myself; I got attacked on Monday and by the time the ambulance got to the hospital I was a full on trauma case which, per the medical reports, could have gone bad just as easily as not; the head injury was that severe. I woke up Tuesday evening and could barely move; by Wednesday morning I could sit up for about a minute; noon Wednesday saw me attempt to walk with a walker, I made it about 20-feet from my bed before being helped back. By early Wednesday evening I was able to walk pretty much all over the section of the hospital I was being kept in, with the help of a cane of course, and that's when I stopped doing things which would help my case; I checked myself out.

Thursday morning I had to lead an online video conference to describe the progress I'd made on developing a self-service VoiceBot for a well known hospital for children; I took a bunch of Tylenol, screwed a smile on my face, and nobody was the wiser. Long story short, by only missing two days of work, the insurance company is of the opinion my injuries weren't terribly severe and certainly not worthy of a large settlement.

[Barbisi]

shipo, that is so patently unfair and shocking!
I thought perhaps you had already been offered some kind of a small settlement, but were suing to get more money and deservedly so.
When I think back to our years in NH, one thought haunts me : I recall someone telling me because of the zero sales tax provision, if my husband were laid off (as he had been in Texas a couple of years prior), he would only be able to collect a very tiny unemployment check, something we luckily never had to worry about.
Are the two connected - unemployment compensation and lawsuit settlements? I don't know but wonder any way.
I hope you somehow prevail in any case.

[shipo]

I don't think sales tax and unemployment benefits are linked; it has been many years now, but as a former employer in New Hampshire, I remember paying some sort of an unemployment tax based upon salary for each of my employees; my understanding is this is what funds unemployment compensation in this state.