Building a better HSA — with help from you

On May 13^th and 14^th, Wells Fargo Health Benefit Services hosted two Advisory Council Meetings in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was the third annual meeting of our Customer Advisory Council and the second meeting of our Broker Advisory Council.

The goal of these meetings was to bring together professionals with a stake in healthcare industry products to discuss HSA trends in general and provide feedback on the Wells Fargo HSA specifically.

Here’s some of what we learned about industry trends.

• Brokers and customers alike reported that HSAs continue to grow in popularity.
• Many companies are undergoing full replacement of traditional plans with an HSA-compatible plan, but noted that HSA employee education was key to the success of such efforts.
• Many companies are seeing significant growth in election of their HSA-compatible plans.
• Companies often see cost reductions with HSA-compatible plans versus traditional plans.
• When properly educated about how to use HSAs, employees tend to be very satisfied with them.
• Wellness programs continue to grow in popularity and sophistication — and many employers are tying wellness programs to their employees’ HSAs.

Brokers explained some of the challenges in selling HSAs:

• Brokers often spend considerable time and effort educating their clients about HSAs.
• HSAs are still very regional — different areas offer very different opportunities and challenges.

Most of the feedback we received on the product and service enhancements we’ve made to the Wells Fargo HSA were extremely positive — particularly in regard to improvements to our implementation process.

• One broker received feedback that his client’s HSA implementation had been seamless: “My client’s employees got their HSA cards faster than their carrier’s cards.”
• Another broker said: “Being broker-friendly is huge for Wells Fargo. Other banks are not as relationship-focused.”
• A third reported that: “The personal attention we get from our HSA Relationship Manager is great. He calls, he stops by. That never happens with other banks. He’s always there to help me.”

Your feedback made the difference

Many of the improvements made to our products and services over the last two years were based on suggestions made at our 2007 and 2008 Advisory Council meetings and from brokers like you, including requests for:

A faster implementation process:	Implementation times for small and medium sized employer groups were reduced by 35%.
A clearly defined cross-selling policy:	The Broker Bill of Rights spells out a clear policy in regard to Health Benefit Services’ participation in cross-selling programs.
Broker communication program:	We now offer a quarterly newsletter called Broker Update that covers product updates, industry trends and best practices; we copy brokers on all client status updates during implementation; and we continue to seek your suggestions for improvement.
Better enrollment & administrative tools:	The Wells Fargo Health Account ManagerSM web portal for accountholders was introduced in 2008. A web portal for Individual Online Enrollment was launched earlier this year.
Educational support:	A Broker Toolkit providing easy access to HSA educational material was introduced in the third quarter of 2008 to help brokers build their books of HSA business. Continuing Education (CE) classes have also been delivered, and our monthly HSA Broker webinars are underway.

There are a couple of unfinished items from the 2008 wish list including local branch banking services for HSA accountholders as well as ATM access. Both initiatives are currently under development.

Looking Ahead:

• Less copy-intensive marketing materials incorporating more graphics and images.
• More help with HSA education.
• A "white-labeled" HSA presentation for brokers to use at client enrollment meetings.
• More frequent reassessment of our investment fund options. As account balances grow over time, offering the right mix of funds becomes ever more important.
• Assistance for employers who want to drive HSA enrollment among the population that has elected an HSA-compatible plan, but not yet opened the HSA.

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