Liz Weston

Dear Liz: Prior to retiring in 2015, I contributed to a health savings account. At the time my spouse and I were enrolled in my employer-provided high deductible health insurance plan. After I retired, I enrolled in an HMO plan my employer provided, which is not high deductible, and my wife enrolled in a Medicare supplemental plan. Can I make a one-time IRA rollover of $8,750 into the HSA? If not the $8,750, can I make any one-time contribution to the account while I am enrolled in the Kaiser health insurance plan? I have only $53 in the HSA. Are there any reasons to keep the account open or should I close it?

Answer: You did have the option, while you were enrolled in the high-deductible plan, to make a one-time rollover from your IRA to your HSA. The amount you could roll over is capped to the HSA contribution limit. The limit in 2015 would have been $7,650 ($6,650 for a family, plus a catch-up contribution of $1,000 for those 55 and over). You would have had to subtract from the rollover any amounts already contributed to the account that year.

Since you no longer have the high-deductible plan, though, rollovers and new contributions aren’t allowed. There’s no reason to keep open a plan with just $53 in it because most HSA providers charge monthly fees that will quickly eat up such a small balance. (Your employer may have paid these fees while you were working and covered by the high-deductible plan.)

That’s too bad, because a properly funded HSA can be an excellent way to save for medical expenses in retirement. HSAs offer a rare triple tax break: Contributions are pre-tax, the money can grow tax deferred and withdrawals are tax free when used for qualifying medical expenses. HSAs are meant to cover the considerable out-of-pocket expenses that come with high-deductible health insurance plans, but the money in the account can be rolled over from year to year and even invested so it can grow.