Headquartered in Boston, Fidelity is one of the largest mutual fund companies and the leading provider of workplace savings plans in the nation. Since 2005, Fidelity has offered a Health Savings Account (HSA) to companies and organizations that have their defined contribution plan(s) recordkept by Fidelity. Previously, only individuals who were employed by these companies and organizations were eligible to open a Fidelity HSA, but as of November 15, 2018, individuals can now self-enroll. Fidelity’s HSA business services 1.5 million accounts, and custodies over $8 billion in assets. 

The ideal investment HSA has no investment threshold, allowing the very first dollar you contribute to be invested. If you're using an HSA for investment purposes, seek an administrator that doesn’t hold your dollars hostage in a checking account earning little to no interest. 

Fidelity has no investment threshold requirement. Fidelity is one of five administrators in our study that allows first dollar investing.

Investment Account

Fidelity offers investors a pre-selected investment lineup, a self-directed brokerage account and now a robo-advisor offering.

Robo-Advisor (Fidelity HSA Go)

A new option for HSA investors is Fidelity HSA Go, a 100% hands off option for those who want their HSA dollars managed. Fidelity will choose and manage your investments for you, taking into account your goals and risk tolerance. Your money is invested in Fidelity Flex® mutual funds which do not charge management fees or, with limited exceptions, fund expenses. This account is intended for investing for 3 years or longer.

There are no minimums to invests and the pricing is as follows:

• Under $10,000: $0

• $10,000–$49,999: $3 per month

• $50,000 and above: 0.35% per year

You can withdraw your money at any time, but it may take up to 10 days to receive it because the account is fully invested and we'll need to sell the securities for you. You can request a check, EFT, or transfer funds to another account.

Brokerage Account

For account owners looking for a broad range of choice, Fidelity offers a full brokerage platform with access to more than 10,000 investment options. Via a Fidelity brokerage account, HSA investors have the opportunity to invest in a wide variety of investment options depending on your investment objective, time horizon, and risk tolerance—including commission-free low-cost index funds, ETFs, Treasuries, CDs, stocks, bonds, mutual funds and more.

Best of all, via the Fidelity brokerage account, index investors can access several zero expense ratio and zero investment minimum index mutual funds. They are an index-investor’s dream come true. Fidelity ZERO Large Cap Index Fund (FNILX), Fidelity ZERO Extended Market Index Fund (FZIPX), Fidelity ZERO Total Market Index Fund (FZROX) and Fidelity ZERO International Index Fund (FZILX) are all free and carry no investment minimums.

For the more experienced and risk-averse, Fidelity now offers dollar-based investing with fractional shares. You can now own a slice of your favorite companies and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) based on how much you want to invest.

Automatic Investments

In order to automate investments, you must already have an investment in any mutual fund in which you would like to automatically invest. There are no transaction fees for automatic investments into Fidelity funds or FundsNetwork® No Transaction Fee (NTF) funds. For all other funds, there is a $5 fee for each automatic investment.

Pre-Selected Investment Lineup

For those who want a “do-it-myself” solution, but seek a simplified set of options, Fidelity introduced the Fidelity HSA Funds to consider, a curated list of 35 active and passive fund options with zero account minimums. This list is selected and monitored by Fidelity’s investment professionals, and includes single fund solutions such as target date funds as well as individual asset class options. Here is the list of funds offered by Fidelity.

Overall, we really like the investment lineup, which is mainly composed of funds from the Fidelity family. Altogether 6 different fund families are represented in the lineup. In the chart below you can see the number of offerings from each fund family.

The table below displays the number of funds offered for each asset class in the Fidelity investment lineup.

Mutual Fund Breakdown

Active vs Passive

At the The HSA Report Card we are big proponents of passive index investing and thus rate highly administrators that offer low-cost index funds for each of the major asset classes. In the table above, you can see that index funds are available for every major asset class.

How expensive are the funds in the Fidelity investment lineup?

As you can see in the chart below, Fidelity offers participants some reasonably priced funds when compared to the other 9 administrators with pre-selected investment lineups in our study.

Interest-Bearing Account

Fidelity offers participants an FDIC-insured, interest-bearing account. Interest bearing accounts make sense for participants who are uneasy about investing their HSA dollars in the equity markets. The interest rate available on different balances is as follows.

Another option for participants wanting to park money in safe interest accruing products are brokered CDs. Fidelity participants are able to access brokered CDs via the self-directed brokerage account. Brokered CDs are issued by banks but bought and sold through a brokerage. We strongly encourage you to conduct your own due diligence on brokered CDs to see if they make sense for you. Check out our article on brokered CD’s if you want to learn more about them.

Fees

Condensed Schedule of Fees (Non-Employer Group)

In our study of the top 10 investment HSAs, Fidelity ranks as the lowest cost provider. Fidelity does not charge any account transactions fees or any separate account fee to invest.

In this section, we have a little fun projecting fees for each administrator. Our goal for this exercise was to find the lowest possible fees for each administrator. Keep in mind, we assumed the HSA was being used solely for investment purposes, therefore only certain fees applied. Given that every HSA is different, there is no perfect way to compare the top 10 administrators in our study. Nonetheless, we gave it a shot and believe there is value in presenting our findings.

In order to compare fees, we made a few simple assumptions:

• Every dollar above the investment threshold was invested.

• Current and future contributions were invested in a single fund.

  • Total Stock Market Index (VTI / VTSAX / SPTM / FZROX) or S&P 500 index (IVV / VIIIX / VFIAX). We believe these two index funds are one in the same.

• No transaction fee (NTF) or commission-free ETF programs were utilized to buy the index funds.

• If these index funds were not available under the NTF and/or commission-free ETF programs, we turned to the open market and executed a single trade per calendar year in order to keep transaction costs down.

For Fidelity we made the following assumptions:

1. Every dollar was invested in FZROX (expense ratio 0.00%)

2. Annual Administrative Fee: $0

3. Annual Investment Fee: $0

No administrative fee, no investment fee and no expense ratio fee all add up to zero HSA investment fees.

The following chart illustrates where Fidelity stands in terms of fees compared to the other top investment HSA administrators. 

Fidelity ranks as the lowest cost provider among the top 10 investment HSAs in our study.

In our search for the very best investment HSAs, we looked for administrators that offered a hassle-free investment experience. Fidelity makes it incredibly easy for HSA investors to manage their account with its intuitive website, automated account transfers, and receipt storage tool for "shoeboxers".

Personal Finance App Integrations

In this modern age of personal finance consumers want the ability to bring together information from multiple accounts and institutions in order to get a 360-degree of their finances and make better spending and saving decisions. The two best personal finance data aggragators are Personal Capital and Mint. The Fidelity HSA integrates nicely with both.

Pros & Cons

A Fidelity HSA may be right for you if:

• You are comfortable directing your own investments and desire a broad variety of investment options, such as mutual funds, ETFs, stocks, and bonds

• You are satisfied with the investment options in the Fideility commission-free ETF list

• You desire first dollar investing

• You desire an online receipt storage tool

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