Fresh off the heels of my health insurance mail order prescription savings finding, leading to $120 in annual savings on prescription drugs, my employer just contributed an additional $400 to my health savings account (HSA).
Why?
I simply showed up to an annual physical exam (100% covered by my HDHP because it is considered preventative, by the way). Well, it wasn’t too simple. I did get poked by a needle and have lived to tell about it.
My wife did the same.
As a result, we received a bonus $400 contributed to my HSA.
To be honest, this did not catch me off guard. I knew this bonus incentive would happen, which is why I scheduled the appointments in the first place. It wasn’t exactly advertised heavily by my company, but I read every last line of my description of benefits and immediately scheduled the appointments.
I bring this up to serve as an FYI and reminder for others to:
- research and find out if your employer offers any bonus HSA contributions
- do what you need to do before it is too late in the year to be eligible for the incentive or you leave your job
Employers are starting to wise up and realize that a little bit of preventative health care can go a long way in reducing the health care premiums they are paying to cover their employees. As a result, there are more incentives than ever before that are up for grabs as they are working with the HDHP insurance providers to creative incentives for their employees.
HSA bonus incentives that I’ve seen include:
- the aforementioned preventative physical exam
- controlled blood pressure
- controlled body weight
- healthy cholesterol levels
- non-smoking
- taking nutrition programs or other health educational courses
My wife previously had an HSA through Lumenos (part of Blue Cross Anthem) that offered the following incentives:
- Complete a “MyHealth Assessment” online $50
- Enroll in a Health Coaching Program $100
- Graduate from a Health Coaching Program $200
- Complete a Healthy Lifestyles: Tobacco-Free Program $50
- Complete a Healthy Lifestyles: Healthy Weight Program $50
That’s $450 just waiting to be grabbed, with minimal effort.
One of the best features of your HSA is you can take it with you when you leave your employer. So if your employer is offering these incentives, make sure you are taking advantage of them while you can, so the money is yours to keep and use towards future health care costs. And don’t settle for a poor HSA – you can transfer funds anytime to one of the best HSA providers.
Note: employer bonus incentives do count towards your maximum HSA contribution limit. However, in order to get them you will likely need to make your contributions through your employer prior to the end of the calendar year versus the typical HSA contribution deadline, which is the same date as the tax deadline. Many HSA employers even let you front-load your HSA contribution. There are also ways to contribute to an HSA outside of an employer’s payroll deduction. Unfortunately, you can’t transfer funds from an FSA to an HSA (I looked into it).
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I am always SHOCKED at how many coworkers do not take advantage of the health and wellness program at my employee. Yes, I get it – it is in the interest of the employer to have healthy workers for a myriad of reasons. However, simply by watching some videos, tracking some workouts, reading some articles, tracking some meals, and partaking in an ON-SITE wellness assessment I get an additional $300 in my HSA. This money helps to pay for my monthly yoga membership so that I don’t have to pay out of pocket for it!
I was going to email you about this but there isn’t an option for that, so here it goes: The ad that appeared in my Google Reader with this article resulted in no less than four pop-ups (it might have been five, I lost track) for the same product. Every time I x’d out of the pop-up, a moment or two later the same one would come up again. The ad, if you’re wondering, was for “America’s best debt solution.” I’m seriously considering unsubscribing because of this incident. I don’t mind one pop-up, but a blizzard of them is awful.
I don’t have any control over what ads Google shows in Google reader. Google is supposed to ban advertisers that show pop-ups on their site.
I’m lucky enough that my company automatically contributes $2000 each year into my HSA. The premium for the HDHP is also easily covered by the $440 or so the company will contribute to monthly premiums. The result is that most years I actually MAKE money through my health plan!
G.E. I have United and I can’t seem to find any information about bonuses. I’m going to have to make a call to figure out where they are hiding the goods. Your incentives were listed right on your description of benefits?
AJ, The bonus is coming from employers not the insurance provider.
Got to love it – its like picking up money in the corner!
It literally pays to read through your 1) health insurance policy and 2) employer guidelines so that you know are familiar with all aspects of the plan.
Do you invest your HSA, G.E.?
Whoa. Thanks for the reminder.
I work for local gov’t and my HSA is through Wells Fargo. I doubt they would offer any bonus HSA incentives but I shall have to research that further.
HSAsare another great way to reduce your tax burden while creating a small nest egg for qualified medical expenses in the future. My company provides 1,500/yr (family) in HSA contributions. My wife is under my health plan through work so she receives approximately 90/month as pay in lieu. We contribute another 1500 per year into the HSA. It should also be mentioned that once you reach a certain account balance you can start investing a portion of the account balance in investments. HSAs may become one more prevalent and important as part of the overall retirement strategy in the future.
I’m wondering, will these employer incentive payments to my HSA account count against my yearly total contribution maximum? If folks are already near or at their contribution maximum, could these incentives push them into a tax liability on HSA yearly over contribution?
Yes, incentives count towards your maximum.
My employer ends their benefits year Nov. 30th and I am changing to a PPO for the next benefits year. However when I did the math for maxing out my HSA in the current year, I thought December would be included. Its Nov 13th with two paychecks (bi-monthly) left. If I can’t get my employer to up my contribution in November, can I after the fact contribute to my HSA on my own in December or before tax day 2019?