Lively is a San Francisco, California based startup focused on creating Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) that are simple to use and cost-effective for all. In fact, the basic HSA account is FREE for individuals and families. This is an unbelievable deal for a contemporary and intuitive product that was built around the consumer and their spending, saving, and investing needs. Lively services over $500 million in HSA assets.

Investment Threshold

The best investment HSAs allow first dollar investing, which means that from the second money arrives into an HSA, from a contribution or transfer, participants can start investing. If you're using an HSA for investment purposes, seek an administrator that does not hold your dollars hostage in a checking account earning little to no interest. 

Fortunately for investors, Lively has no investment threshold. Lively is one of six administrators in our study that allows first dollar investing.

Lively offers investors a pre-selected investment lineup and a TD Ameritrade self-directed brokerage account.

TD Ameritrade Brokerage Account

Lively offers a TD Ameritrade self-directed brokerage account which gives investors access to stocks, bonds, CDs, ETFs, and more than 13,000 mutual funds. Commissions for online US stock, ETF and option trades at TD Ameritrade are $0. This enables investors to dollar cost average into ETFs and stocks at no cost.

Auto-Investments for Mutual Funds at TD Ameritrade

 To set-up auto investments directly into Mutual Funds at TD Ameritrade: 

1. You must first purchase a mutual fund (any fund)

   • If it is a No Load Mutual Fund, there is a $25 cost per fund

2. Set-up auto investments into that mutual fund

   • Email support@livelyme.com and they will send you a TD Ameritrade form to complete; or

   • Call TD Ameritrade’s participant services team directly (1-866-766-4015)

3. Once set-up, all additional systematic purchases into that mutual fund will have the fee waived

Unfortunately, auto-investments are not allowed for individual stocks or ETFs.

Pre-Selected Investment Lineup - HSA Guided Portfolio

Lively has added personalized investment guidance to its investment offering. HSA Guided Portfolio by Devenir, a national leader in investment solutions for health-based accounts, provides personalized portfolio mix suggestions based on your risk preferences and time horizon.

• Choose from a curated menu of high-quality, low cost funds across asset classes

• Enable automated rebalancing to keep your portfolio on track toward your goals

• Maximize long-term returns through a low maintenance investing strategy

Lively offers participants an FDIC-insured, interest bearing account. This is the default option when opening an HSA with Lively. Interest bearing accounts make sense for participants who are uneasy about investing their HSA dollars in the equity markets.

In an effort to keep the economy stable during the historic response to the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), the Federal Reserve has cut its benchmark interest rates to near zero. As a result, Lively has updated the annual percentage yield (APY) paid on cash balances in its HSA, effective March 6, 2020, to 0.01%.

Another option for participants wanting to park money in safe interest accruing products are brokered CDs. Lively participants are able to access brokered CDs via the TD Ameritrade self-directed brokerage account. Brokered CDs are issued by banks but bought and sold through a brokerage. Interest rates offered by some brokered CDs via TD Ameritrade can be higher than those offered by Lively. 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 & Commissions

Projected Fees

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 and the same.

• No transaction fee (NTF) or commission-free ETF programs were utilized to buy 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 Lively we made the following assumptions:

1. TD Ameritrade Brokerage

2. All assets were invested in SPTM ETF (expense ratio 0.03%)

3. SPTM is a commission-free ETF. No transaction costs incurred.

4. Annual Investment Fee: $0

Under these assumptions, the only fee investors will incur is the SPTM ETF expense ratio fee (0.03%).

The following chart illustrates where Lively stands in terms of fees compared to the other top 10 investment HSA administrators.  

As you can see, Lively's fees at every invested balance measured are extremely low compared to the other top 10 investment HSAs. 

Features

In our search for the very best investment HSAs, we looked for administrators that offered a hassle-free investment experience. Lively makes it incredibly easy for HSA investors to manage their account with its intuitive website, automated account transfers, and a 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. Lively integrates with Personal Capital, but not with Mint.

Pros & Cons

A Lively 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 TD Ameritrade commission-free ETF list

• You desire first dollar investing

• You desire an online receipt storage tool

• You understand that Lively is a startup

• You are also planning on spending some of those HSA dollars. Lively is on our short list of the best HSAs for spenders.