Advice on HSA from old Employer

[TG Park]

I've got an HSA with Wex Health Inc. that I got through my old employer (left the job last year). Balance of about 1K cash and 7.5K  invested in a Vanguard S&P 500 index fund. As our strategy states, I've been paying for everything medical for me, my wife, and our new kid in cash and scanning/storing the receipts to "redeem" down the line.

My questions are:

1) There's no reason to think that I won't be able to access money from this fund just because I'm no longer with the employer, correct?

2) Assuming I still have access to the account now and down the line, is there a reason to switch to a different provider? Ie are there any penalties for keeping an old employer HSA?

3) Are there any other providers you'd recommend? Why?

Thanks Everyone

[Scio5]

Would you be able to ask your old HR department? If it acts like a 401k there *shouldn't* be any reason why you can't leave it there. However, if your old employer changes who they use for the HSA, you may need to do a direct rollover to a new brokerage (in 2020 an old employer switched 401k providers and I finally had to rollover the old account to a new personal tIRA). So from a proactive standpoint it might be safer to just roll it over now.

My new employer direct deposits HSA funds to a local bank, and I set up an online account with a company called Lively that allows me to transfer funds into a TD Ameritrade account to invest. I like it fine so far, no complaints, except that it seems to take forever for my bank to transfer funds.

[Sibley]

My ex-employers all stopped paying the monthly account fees once I stopped working for them, so it was in my best interest to get the money out. I eventually ended up with a Fidelity HSA as its an established company and doesn't charge fees. (I wasn't interested in a company that's existed for 6 months.) However, I'm not storing receipts to later pull the money.

HSAs are your money. They can make you move the money, but they can't take it back.

[sonofsven]

1) That's your money, absolutely, you just need access to the account. I'm assuming everything was done automatically through your work?

2)  You can keep it with them or not, up to you. Are you going to continue to deposit money into it? If so then one that links to your bank accounts and is user friendly.

3) My only experience is with Lively, I would recommend them. I deposit to my Lively HSA  myself and then transfer from Lively to their investment partner which is TD Ameritrade, where I buy Vanguard VTI. All on phone apps. Easy.

[MDM]

...a Fidelity HSA as its an established company and doesn't charge fees.

+1

TG Park, you could explore comments on Fidelity and others in that link.

As with any brokerage transfer, work with the preferred company to have them "pull" the funds and advise on what is needed from you to facilitate that.

[NorCal]

The account is yours. The employer can’t take that away.

You’re likely subject to some fees your former employer was paying. I had one through Optum, and the new fees were $1/mo.

In my case, we kept the former employer’s HSA account and continued to contribute to it once we bought a marketplace plan. Shopping and transferring wasn’t worth the $12/yr potential savings for us.

I believe you can also role it into a different plan, but I don’t know the details of that.

[rantk81]

As others have mentioned, open an HSA account at Fidelity, and move the funds/investments over!
The sign-up process on Fidelity's website will give you the option to move the funds/investments into the new account. You'll need to upload a statement from the other account.  I've done this, and couldn't be happier with the Fidelity HSA.  No fees. And I can invest in anything I want.  And I'm not required to keep the first $1000 in cash (which the crappy PayFlex custodian selected by my former employer, forced me to do.)