Did you know the NueSynergy Health Savings Account (HSA) delivers an immediate income tax deduction?

Contributing funds lowers taxable income while helping build a nest egg for future health care expenses. Contributions to the HSA may be made by the employee, employer or anyone; however, the preferred tax treatment will only be realized by the employee.

Whether you’re an employee or employer, there are several benefits to opening a NueSynergy HSA.

Below are the top 10 reasons to open a NueSynergy HSA:

Triple Tax-Advantaged:
Contributions are tax-free, potential interest gains accumulate tax-free and distributions are tax-free when used to pay for qualified medical expenses.

Flexible:
In case of emergency, funds can be used for non-medical expenses (money withdrawn may incur a 20% penalty and income tax charge). At age 65, any remaining HSA funds can be withdrawn for non-medical reasons without a penalty.

Portable:
The employee owns all HSA account funds. The accumulated balance in the account rolls over from year to year. Accounts move with employees even if they change employment or retire.

Convenient:
The NueSynergy prepaid MasterCard provides employees with an easy and convenient way to access HSA contributions. Paper checks are provided as well.

Independence:
Employers prefer the long-term viability of an independent administrator. The relationship the employer has with their HSA administrator or HSA custodian remains consistent, along with all plan processes and resources, even if the employer switches to a different insurance plan.

Savings solution for future health needs:
Unused contributions accumulate and can be saved and used for future medical expenses or to supplement retirement income. For example, unused funds can be used to pay COBRA or other medical insurance premiums during periods of unemployment or temporary layoff.

FDIC Insured Account:
NueSynergy has partenered with Avidia Bank, to provide our FDIC insured HSAs. This partnership enables us to proved a fully integrated experience through both our employee and employer portals.

Investment options:
Employees can select from a spectrum of investment options to match their preferred investment style. *Investments are offered through Devenir.

Record keeping:
Process HSA deposits and withdrawals, post transactions, prepare and distribute bank statements and perform year end reporting on required IRS forms.

Monthly Statements:
Sent when the account has any activity. (Quarterly statements are sent to all account holders regardless of activity.

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For over 20 years, NueSynergy has partnered with agents and their employer clients to administer HSA, FSA and HRA programs that focus on bringing true value to the benefits plan.

See how NueSynergy can help your participants develop a benefit account offering that best fits their unique culture, workforce, brand and benefits program.

Contact us today for a consultation: 855.890.7239 | sales@nuesynergy.com

Please take a moment to read the latest article about NueSynergy’s Consolidated Billing. Published by the industry-leading information resource, Employee Benefit Adviser, this article provides a brief overview about our latest solution that consolidates all carrier premiums into one easy-to-review statement and allows employers to pay all carriers with one statement.

Why Consolidated Billing?
Having to manage and reconcile premiums from multiple carriers has become common place for employers offering insurance to their employees. Auditing carrier statements for accuracy and paying multiple carriers has become a daunting task for many employers and HR departments. Thanks to NueSynergy’s Consolidated Billing, no longer will employers need to worry about monitoring and reconciling carriers bills.

Recently introduced on Employee Navigator, NueSynergy Consolidated Billing is garnering significant interest from industry leaders and employers throughout the Midwest and beyond.

Please feel free to email us at sales@nuesynergy.com for more information about this innovative solution.

About Employee Benefits Adviser
Employee Benefit Adviser is an industry-leading information resource, serving more than 146,000 brokers, advisers, agents, financial planners, investment advisers and consultants.

About Employee Navigator
Employee Navigator is the nation’s fastest growing benefits and HR platform that supports more than 18,000 companies and 3 million employees across the country

Interested in learning more? Contact us today: 855.890.7239 | sales@nuesynergy.com

LEAWOOD, KS., (October 20, 2017) – The IRS has announced the 2018 contribution maximums for Flexible Spending Account (FSA) plans in the newly released Revenue Procedure 2017-58. Contribution limits increased for the Health FSA, Commuter Benefits and Adoption Assistance program, while limits for the Dependent Care FSA remained unchanged.

Health Flexible Spending Account

The Health FSA, which provides employees the ability to set aside money on pre-tax basis to pay for eligible medical, dental, and vision expenses will have an increase to its contribution maximum from $2,600 to $2,650 for 2018. The new contribution limit will also apply to the Limited Purpose FSA which reimburses eligible dental and vision expenses.

Commuter Benefits

Commuter Benefits help employees pay for certain parking, mass transit and/or vanpooling expenses with pre-tax dollars. The contribution limits for this account will increase from $255 to $260 for 2018.

Adoption Assistance

The Adoption Assistance FSA helps employees pay eligible adoption expenses such as agency fees and court costs by contributing to the account with pre-tax money from their paycheck. The contribution limits for this account will increase from $13,570 to $13,840 for 2018.

2017 and 2018 Contribution Amounts

Benefit 2017 | 2018

Health FSA $2,600 | $2,650

Limited FSA $2,600 | $2,650

Dependent Care $5,000 | $5,000

Parking/Transportation $255 / $255 | $260 / $260

Adoption Assistance $13,570 | $13,840

Questions? Contact us at 855.890.7239 or send an email to customerservice@nuesynergy.com.

Healthcare spending accounts, such as Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), have become increasingly popular over the last decade. They help individuals and families pay for medical expenses and provide for more control over those expenses.

One frequently asked question we receive is, “can I have an HRA and HSA at the same time?”

The answer is yes. Under specific circumstances, you can have an HRA and HSA at the same time.

There are four HRA plans that are compatible with an HSA:

• Limited Purpose
• Post-deductible
• Retirement
• Suspended

Employers must also ensure their HRAs are HSA eligible before employees can utilize both accounts. There are several advantages to using both an HRA and HSA, such as lower health insurance premiums, greater control over employer contributions, flexibility on plan designs as well as additional tax savings.

Is your HRA plan HSA eligible? Are you ready to make the most of your benefits?

Contact us today for a consultation at 855.890.7239 or sales@nuesynergy.com

Are you confident your participants understand their benefit account options? Do they grasp how pre-tax accounts can help them save money and gain control over their healthcare and financial future?

Consumer research indicates they don’t.

For over 20 years, NueSynergy has partnered with agents and their employer clients to administer HSA, FSA and HRA programs that focus on bringing true value to the benefits plan. We can directly support your communications strategy and educate your participants to become more informed consumers who are ready to make important benefit decisions that fit their needs.

See how NueSynergy can help your participants during this Open Enrollment period to develop a benefit account offering that best fits their unique culture, workforce, brand and benefits program.

Contact us today for a consultation at 855.890.7239 or sales@nuesynergy.com

Are you a broker who’s been recommending self-insured, level-funded plans to your small group clients? If so, you’re not alone – more and more small employers, in an effort to keep premiums under control, are bailing on the small group market and taking advantage of one of the many self-funded options being offered to companies with as few as two employees. In the past, most brokers wouldn’t have even considered self-insuring a company with fewer than a hundred workers, and many would have set the cutoff point even higher. So why now?

The short answer is that the Affordable Care Act changed all of the rules. Younger, healthier small groups, which historically have been rewarded with below-average premiums for their relatively low claims risk, can expect their costs to go up under the new modified adjusted community rating rules. The community rating guidelines do not permit medical underwriting in the small group market, so healthier companies are being forced to pay more in order to offset the costs of older, sicker groups. It’s not fair, but it is reality.

Self-funded plans offer a great alternative: healthy companies are able to dodge the new rules and might even get a refund if they have a good year. Still, not everyone is sold on self-funding, and some companies won’t actually benefit.

For instance, a company with 25 employees might have one worker with a serious medical condition. Under a partially self-funded arrangement, the employer would cover a portion of the cost for that employee, up to a stop-loss amount, at which point the reinsurance would kick in and cover the remaining amount. Unfortunately, the expected claims costs for this employee will be reflected in the rates, so the company will pay a higher monthly amount if it’s not declined altogether.

There is another option, though. The employer can purchase a fully-insured plan in the small group market, where it won’t pay more for the sick worker, and “self-insure” a portion of the out-of-pocket costs with a Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA). Sure, the employer will incur some predictable HRA claims on that one employee, but if the rest of the company’s employees have a good year the employer could still come out ahead. Perhaps it will help if we put some numbers to it. We’ll keep the math easy.

Assume the company has these two options: stick with its existing $3,000 deductible HSA-qualified plan or purchase a higher-deductible plan and use a portion of the premium savings to lower the exposure for the employees.

This is an actual quote, and it’s a great example of one where the math just works. Let’s assume the employer is paying 100% of the premium. That means the company will save $146 per employee per month, or $1,752 per year. Multiply that by 25 employees, and the company would save $43,800 per year by moving to the $6,000 deductible plan.

One option would be to sink the premium savings into the employees’ HSAs. Sure, the employees would have more exposure than with the lower-deductible plan, but they’d also have some money for first-dollar coverage, which isn’t a bad trade-off. Unfortunately, the employer wouldn’t save any money with this option.

Another approach, though, would be to use the premium savings to pay for a Health Reimbursement Arrangement. The employer could reimburse claims between $3,000 and $6,000, making the plan “feel” to the employees like a $3,000 deductible plan. It would still be HSA-compatible, and since the employer is covering 100% of the premiums, the employees could certainly contribute some of their own funds to a Health Savings Account.

The administrative cost for this plan would be approximately $2,500, leaving the employer more than $40,000 to pay HRA claims. We already know that the one sick employee will use the full $3,000, but if the other 24 employees have a relatively good year, the employer can save quite a bit of money, but let’s not assume the best-case scenario. Instead, suppose that five of the 24 employees end up hitting the full $6,000 deductible, which is unlikely because that would total almost 25% of the group. Even so, the employer would end up paying $2,500 in administrative costs and $18,000 in claims for a total of $20,500. The net savings to the employer is $23,300, and that’s with a sick employee that would have killed the self-funding option. Clearly, this is a strategy worth considering.

One final thought: This is not necessarily the way we at NueSynergy would have designed the HRA (we would have been a little more creative), but this example does illustrate that there’s still a place for HRAs in a community rating environment. By self-funding a portion of the deductible, a company can reduce its fixed monthly premium while maintaining a great health plan for the employees.

If you have a client you’d like to consider an HRA for, we’ll work with you to structure it in a way that will minimize employer risk while maximizing employee satisfaction. Contact us today and let’s take a look at one of your toughest clients.