Jaszbo
Preferred Member
Cash: $ 35.90
Posts: 177
Joined: 03 Jan 2006
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Check out if they have an HSA. Health Savings account. Unlike an FSA, the money you contribute goes away after a little bit over a year if you don't use it. An HSA is used with a high deductible insurance plan. Say between you and your organization the total insuance is 300 dollars, well depending on your HSA account, mine puts 125 dollars into an HSA account each month that grows 2.88% and then you can move it to other brokers that except HSA accounts to invest money on it when it grows to a certain size.
Basically at the end of the year my HSA account if I don't dip into it, will grow to 1,500 dollars, which you can also contribute an addiction 1,000 for singles I belive. I think it's 3,000 for the family plan.
All the contributions made keep rolling over year after year after year.
I recently saw a study that said 85% of people would be better off with an HSA account than a regular insurance plan. One main reason is that all your copayments, deductibles would be paid with pretaxed dollars and when you don't get sick your money just grows and you can use the money for medical expenses that aren't covered by your insurance, like braces for the kids..etc
I've only had my HSA account for about 3 months, and most people are in the same boat, since it's pretty new, but I have to say I am really happy.
I would advice you to have at least 3 to 6 months of expenses saved before changing to this plan, beucase it's a high deductable plan. Mine for instance is 2,500 dollars and you can use your HSA account to pay for the deductable, etc.
Some people get scared and think the first year is very very risky, becuase you have to pay 2,500 dollars if something happpens. This is true.....but say you get the account today and in day you went to the hospital and it cost you that complete 2,500 dollars. Well first you would get 1,500 dollars, so the most it would have cost would be 1,000 dollars. Now you can contribute money, so it's tax free, so you should subtract say 25%, so the risk level is really 750 dollars for the first year.
After a few years the HSA plans really make sense. Some people are using them as another way for retirement planning.
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