The Best HSA's With Brokerage Accounts

Before we get into discussing the best HSAs with brokerage accounts let’s begin this blog post with a word of caution. In our opinion, only those investors with a substantial level of experience and sophistication should invest their precious HSA dollars. For investors who are less experienced, investments available via a pre-selected investment lineup should suffice. With that out of the way, here are our top picks for the best brokerage accounts available to HSA investors.

Fidelity

Fidelity HSAs are brokerage accounts, giving you the option 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, commission-free ETFs, Treasuries, CDs, stocks, bonds, mutual funds and more.

Fidelity made some changes over the last few years to their brokerage offering that have resonated well with conscientious investor’s. Fidelity joined in the rush to cut equity and base options commissions to zero in October 2019. They also now offer a selection of Fidelity Zero index funds, which have no expense ratio and no minimum investment requirement. Included in this list is the 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), which are all available to individual retail HSA investors.

Around the web, users and repiutable reviewers praise Fidelity for their platform. In fact, NerdWallet rated Fidelity the best broker for beginning investors. Here is the complete review from Nerdwallet.

Further, Optum Bank, and Discovery Benefits

Further, Discovery Benefits and Optum Bank customers can all access a Charles Schwab brokerage account once the investment threshold is reached. Each administrator has set a specific threshold required to gain access to a Schwab brokerage account. You can find the investment thresholds and other points of comparison for each administrator in the table below.

Once participants gain access to a Schwab brokerage account a plethora of fantastic investment options are opened up to them including stocks, bonds, ETFs and mutual funds. In late 2019, Schwab terminated commissions for online trading in U.S. stocks, exchange-traded funds and options. Schwab investor’s are now able to trade a wide collection of exchange-traded funds without charge — making it easy and free to build a low cost, diversified indexed portfolio.

Schwab also offers users an intuitive and easy to use interface. Schwab has consistently garnered high marks by reputable reviewers online when it comes to it’s platform. Here is a review from Nerdwallet.

First Dollar, Lively, and HSA Bank

Lively, HSA Bank and First Dollar all offer a TD Ameritrade (TDA) self-directed brokerage account which gives investors access to stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Lively and First Dollar offer immediate access to TDA since they offer first dollar investing. On the other hand HSA Bank has instituted a $1,000 investment threshold, which forces investors to hold said dollar amount in the HSA account at all times.

On October 1st TD Ameritrade also announced they were no longer going to charge commissions for online stock, ETF and option trades, starting on Thursday, October 3rd. This indirectly makes the Lively and First Dollar investment offering pretty damn appealing for experienced DIY investors.

As far as the investment platform goes TD Ameritrade has consistently garnered praise from respected reviewers from around the web. Here is a review from Nerdwallet.

Saturna Capital

Via a Saturna brokerage account administered by Pershing participants can purchase stocks, ETFs, bonds, and a wide variety of non-Saturna affiliated funds. This includes access to no transaction fee (NTF) and no-load funds via the FundVest Focus platform. The platform features funds from providers including Franklin Templeton, Federated, Parnassus, PIMCO, Royce and T. Rowe Price. Fidelity, Schwab, and Vanguard funds are not included in the NTF list. However, one can buy Fidelity, Schwab and Vanguard funds for $14.95 plus a $10 surcharge on the open market. To lower their expense ratios, these firms don't cover some of the regulatory requirements for delivery of documents, thus the $10 surcharge.