Buyer Beware

Buyer beware. May be good for families who make high annual contributions and have many bills they can pay online, but not for singles, or for families who don't fund to the maximum. I have been very disappointed by the "gotchas" listed below.

HSA accounts at Connexus do NOT pay 4% UNLESS you have a balance over $15,000. This is not published anywhere (good marketing move)--you need to call, or find out the hard way when your interest payment is only about 2.3%. I'm still not sure if it is only the amount above $15,000 that collects the 4%, or whether it applies to the entire balance--I'll probably never find out, because it would take 4 years of maximum contributions (and only about $1,000 in total expenses over those 4 years) for a single person get a balance over $15,000!

HSA accounts are subject to a $5.95 online billpay inactivity fee if you don't use the online billpay function at least once every 90 days. It isn't trivial to arrange a regularly occurring bill that can be paid online, so think about it before you act.

If you open a new HSA account, you will also need to open a normal savings account with a minimum deposit of $5. If you fund both accounts with a single check that includes the annual maximum HSA contribution $5 for the normal savings account, be sure to specify that the entire check be deposited to the normal savings account first, then pay for any checks ($12.44) from the savings account, THEN transfer the remainder (less $5) to the HSA. Otherwise, you will end up over-funding the HSA (max $5) AND getting hit for unqualified distributions of $12.44 $5. After I pointed this out to Connexus, my overfunding situation and $5 distribution were changed, but the unqualified distribution of $12.44 for checks remained.