Fidelity Offers HSAs to Financial Service Organizations

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Fidelity Information Services (Fidelity), a division of Fidelity National Financial, Inc. has tossed its hat in offering Health Savings Account solutions to financial service organizations. HSAs are tax-free savings accounts that can be used to pay for medical expenses including prescription and over the counter drugs incurred by individuals, spouses or dependents. Unused HSA money rolls over from year to year and can then be used to pay for medical care up to the plan's deductible. Edward Kountz, senior research analyst for TowerGroup, recently reported that two types of HSA investors will emerge. The first type includes consumers who steadily save up their assets in anticipation of future health care issues and will tap those assets to cover their health care costs during their retirement. The second type includes "HSA savers" – those account holders who invest funds and let the proceeds grow tax-free over an extended period of time as a sort of proxy retirement savings vehicle. Kountz went on to say that he expects 1.88 million HSAs to be in the market by the end of 2005 and that number should rise to 6.2 million by 2010. Recently Fiserv has been spreading the word that credit unions can play a major role in HSAs and with Fiserv's unique characteristic of doing processing for health care plan administrators and financials it may be better positioned than any vendor in the financial services industry to assist financials in penetrating HSAs. Fiserv also offers various health payment solutions and marketing and educational tools for that industry.