HEATH SAVINGS ACCOUNT: WHAT IS IT?

​I wanted to talk about health savings accounts today. One of the most common things I hear when I’m out enrolling employees. Or educating employers on the savings group is they’ll say something like, “hey, I’ve heard of that it’s… a health savings account”, or “I had that at my old employer.” And that’s not true, those aren’t accurate descriptions of an HSA, people are getting them confused.

WHAT IS A HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNT?

​Health savings accounts are were created by the government and their tax-preferred accounts that you can put money into. To qualify for this you have to be enrolled in an HSA plan.

These plans almost always have higher limits. For an individual it may be $3,000, you contribute per year, and then for a family $6,000. Any money you put in as a tax deduction. If you don’t ever use it, you can invest the money in mutual funds, stocks, whatever, and it once you hit retirement age, you can pull it out with no penalty.

This, in essence, is a Health Savings account.

​HOW INSURANCE SAVINGS GROUP DIFFERS FROM TRADITIONAL HSA PLANS.

​In order to be eligible for a health savings account, you have to enroll in an HSA plan. For most people, that means dropping their coverage. It means reducing your benefits. This leads to higher deductibles. And there are no co-pays for anything before the deductible is covered. Doctor visits, Urgent Care, prescriptions. All the little things that people use all the time, they have to give that up.

The great thing about Insurance Savings Group is you don’t have to do these things. We can work with the plan you have right now or any other plan you want to choose. That’s a great advantage to the savings group. It’s just an add-on to your already existing coverage.

​HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO PAY FOR DEDUCTIBLES WITH HSA PLANS?

​Another problem with a traditional Health Savings Account is you’re going to start off with very little money in your account. And you’ve just increased your deductible. You may have only put in $100 or $200 over the last couple months. So you’ve actually just increased your risk. In case you get sick, or you need an emergency room visit the coverage just isn’t there when you first start a traditional HSA. This can be a huge liability for people. And that’s actually the reason why a lot of people don’t sign up for health savings accounts. They know that “man this is going to take me five years to save up enough money to cover my deductible.”

And that’s exactly the reason why I created the savings group. We fix this problem perfectly. With our plan when you put in $100, instead of it, taking five years to save up enough money to cover your deductible, it will give you all that money right away. Starting day one. So it’s almost like overdraft protection for your savings account. If you need that money in an emergency, or for some kind of high out of pocket expense, it’s available.

It saves a lot of people in that they don’t have to worry about where they are going to come up with this money.

If you would like to know more about how you can start taking advantage of ISG’s benefits please dont hesitate to reach out to me today.

-Duncan