Author Topic: Buying Health Insurance/ HSA? (Canada)  (Read 1602 times)

ElleFiji

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Buying Health Insurance/ HSA? (Canada)
« on: September 14, 2017, 02:45:35 PM »
Hi Everyone!

When I knew I'd be self employed, I chose to continue extended benefits through my school's plan. I'm still paying, but they don't cover some of my biggest expenses: Massage therapy, dental and counselling/therapy. I'm considering setting up an HSA to cover those..but I'm not sure how they work and what to look for.

Anyone have experiences or resources to share?

Thanks

Jen

Step37

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Re: Buying Health Insurance/ HSA? (Canada)
« Reply #1 on: September 20, 2017, 09:08:34 PM »
Hi Jen,

I'm a shareholder in a small company (in Alberta - 5 employees, including 3 shareholders) and we have an HSA set up through Quikcard. They can be set up for sole proprietorships as well.

The main benefit is that it's a tax deductible expense for the company and a tax free benefit for the employee. You can set it up to whatever amounts/limits you want, and they debit your account monthly. They charge a percentage (I believe ours is at 12%) on everything they process; any other money you've paid them is still yours until you use it. I think you can set it up so they stop collecting from you if you get the account built to a certain amount (that you can specify).

It made a lot more sense for us, as a very small company, than an insured plan (quite cost prohibitive and limitations on benefits). It works particularly well because most of our spouses are on typical insured plans, and since this is an HSA, we can max the respective insured plans first and then use this for anything only partially or not covered (no coordination of benefits to worry about).