Health Savings Accounts and the Retirement Advisor

OPPORTUNITY AWAITS

BY RYAN TIERNAN, CIMA®, CEBS®)

As the nation grapples with the rising cost of health care, investors and advisors alike are taking a second look at health savings accounts (HSAs) and the potentially critical role they can play in today’s holistic retirement planning environment. In decades past, advisors of all stripes—wealth management, retirement plan consulting, and even some in the benefits administration world—may have seen the "H" in HSA and simply handed over the conversation to the benefits consultant. Meanwhile benefits consultants may have seen HSA investment options and related cash accounts as a financial services vehicle and maintained a distance. The HSA sat at this intersection, a jump ball that neither side really cared to jump for.

Now that HSA selection has become more common among employees and both usage and invested assets over the past decade or so have grown, that’s starting to change.