As more employers add Health Savings Accounts to their benefit plans, they typically find that they are running up against three main challenges regarding HSA engagement:
- Enrolling their employees in the HSA accounts
- Motivating employees to make contributions to their accounts, and
- Encouraging their employees to use their HSAs as an investment vehicle for retirement.
To address these issues, SavingsOak has designed a first-of-its-kind program to take your employees on the journey from unengaged, to saver, to an investor in three easy steps.
Engage Them at Enrollment
It all starts with the enrollment process. Your employees will receive an email asking them to complete their quick, easy account registration. Here’s the key! This email will include a gift of stock in their HSA investments account if they finish the registration process within seven days. Your employees are already enrolled in their HSA and invested from the beginning. It’s important to note that investment in HSA accounts, though growing, is not a widely known feature. With only 6% of people investing in their HSAs, your employees will already be ahead of the curve just by enrolling. Also, receiving a stock will encourage those who have never invested before to learn and understand investments within their HSA and other retirement accounts such as their 401(k).
Incentivize Them to Contribute
Employees can sometimes hesitate to make contributions to their accounts. They could have other priorities that they feel they need to take care of instead. Your next step is to incentivize your employees to contribute pre-tax dollars. Why not offer them a bit of motivation? When employees make their first payroll contribution, they receive another gift of stock. Some people may stop payroll contributions once they receive their incentives. However, past trends indicate that people typically keep contributing unless there is a change of life event – changing jobs or a significant financial challenge.
Encourage Them to Invest in Their Financial Wellness
Employees investing in their HSA are starting to take hold of their financial well-being and think about their future healthcare and retirement spending.
The final step is to encourage employees to take the initiative to move their funds from their cash account into their HSA investment account. Employees who transfer a designated amount of money into their investment account within seven days will receive another stock allocation. Now your employees are empowered to take their own money, invest it and watch it grow.
With these three incentives in place, you’ve created the ideal HSA participant in about a month and encouraged your employees on the path to financial wellness.
