Anonymous wrote:DH and I have been rolling over our various HSA plans from one employer to the next for years and we’re thinking now about rolling over to an independent brokerage company and just leaving a lower amount in our employer’s HSABank. Is this common? Does anyone else have experience doing this? We’re thinking about an HSA with Fidelity.
I don't know if it's common, but it's what I do. I have an HSA account with Fidelity and an automatic payroll deduction that puts my contribution into the Fidelity HSA. The employer contribution has to go to the insurer's pet HSA (which pays a comical 0.01% interest), but every few months or so I fill out the paperwork to roll over that balance into my Fidelity account.
When moving money from one HSA administrator to another, I do a "trustee-to-trustee transfer," not a rollover. A rollover goes through you—one administrator sends you a check, which you then deposit with the other administrator. If you don't make the deposit within 60 days, you could be hit with penalties. A trustee-to-trustee transfer is sent straight from one HSA administrator to the other. Also, you can only do an HSA rollover once per year, but there's no limit on how often you can do trustee-to-trustee transfers.