The “complex” fee structures for many health savings accounts may “obscure the true cost of the product” and, combined with low-interest yields, reduce the amount of funds consumers can spend on healthcare products, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said today in a new report.
In the document, the CFPB said that HSAs can include monthly maintenance fees, paper statement fees, outbound transfer fees and account closure fees. The report also alleged that HSAs offer “consistently offer relatively low interest rates” and that some consumers faced higher expenses due to the higher deductibles required for an insurance plan to offer an HSA. “When consumers end up with an HSA with high fees and inferior terms, it directly reduces the funds they can allocate to their healthcare needs,” the authors concluded.
The CFPB didn’t propose any new rulemaking in response to the report’s conclusions, but in an accompanying statement, it characterized HSAs as having “costly, complex and captive junk fee structures.” Such fees “are costly and typically unavoidable,” the bureau said.
ABA Health Savings Account Council disappointed with report
The CFPB report misrepresents the industry and fails to capture the value millions of Americans nationwide experience by owning an HSA, Kevin McKechnie, executive director of the ABA HSA Council, said.
In a statement, McKechnie noted that there were approximately 36 million HSAs in the U.S. in 2023 and yet only 189 complaints were filed within the CFPB’s database, representing just .00052% of all HSA accounts. Tens of millions of Americans are choosing HSAs for their triple-tax advantage benefits and the control they afford consumers over their money and how it’s invested, he said.
“The reality is many of the ‘fees’ identified in the CFPB report either no longer exist or are not incurred by the consumer,” McKechnie said. “For example, employers pay the monthly maintenance fees for the overwhelming majority of HSAs in the U.S. With more than 1,600 approved HSA administrators in the country, this is a strong and competitive marketplace that allows consumers to choose the provider that best suits their financial needs.”
