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My husband and I recently got married and are wondering what to do about health insurance. I am currently with a company that offers a plan with the option to put funds in an HSA or FSA.

My husband's company only offers an FSA but isn't enrolled. If I switch to be covered by his health insurance, can I still keep my HSA?

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(Quite frequently, your spouse's insurance company won't cover you if you're eligible for insurance through your own company.)

http://www.benefitspro.com/2011/05/10/think-twice-about-closing-an-hsa

Has your insurance plan changed?If so, you can keep your HSA open and all the funds still belong to you. One of the best parts of having an HSA is you can keep your account open and continue to use the funds to pay for medical expenses if your insurance plan changes, or even if you currently don’t have an insurance plan in place.

Even if you no longer have an HDHP, you can still keep your HSA.You can still keep your account open and can continue to use funds for qualified medical expenses – you simply can’t make any additional contributions while you are not covered under a qualified HDHP.

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If you were already on your company HSA making contributions, those funds are yours and you can spend them or potentially "roll" them into your 401(k) (I don't recommend this, as this is not a qualified HSA expense!). Talk to your plan administrator. You probably need to be on your employers plan to continue contributing, however.

You can have more than one health insurance plan covering you. Carefully consider:

So, you'd be on two plans, potentially paying two premiums and would have to think about two deductibles, out-of-pocket maximums, and so forth.

You also have this concept of primary and secondary coverage. You don't get to pick which is which. If you're on your companies HSA, that's your primary coverage, and your spouses plan counts as secondary. This means when you file your claim, it goes on your primary insurance plan. Anything not covered by the primary can potentially get covered by the secondary plan, but the initial claim does not go toward the deductible of your spouses plan.

I think that many HSA plans are "high" deductible plans. So this decision may come off as financially riskier.

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  • Can you cite the source for your claim about rolling the funds to a 401(k)? That was asked before: money.stackexchange.com/questions/72165/…
    – Wesley Marshall
    Nov 6, 2017 at 13:16
  • @WesleyMarshall I would avoid it. It's basically taking your HSA money and putting it in your IRA or 401(k), meaning you pay income tax and a tax penalty on the money you "roll over." That being said, it's just a bad idea and on that note I edited the answer to reflect that.
    – CKM
    Nov 6, 2017 at 18:39
  • I'm not planning to do it; I am just curious what makes you think rolling over to a 401(k) is possible, since I've never seen documentation indicating that's allowed. What you described in your comment doesn't sound like a true rollover.
    – Wesley Marshall
    Nov 7, 2017 at 19:45
  • @WesleyMarshall I'd put "roll" in quotes yesterday. What I should have done is avoided that word, but it's essentially withdrawing the HSA funds and dropping them into the 401(k). What I was thinking at the time is you can, however, rollover funds from a 401(k) to an HSA, but the reverse is frowned upon and thus heavily taxed.
    – CKM
    Nov 7, 2017 at 22:23

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