We’ve reached a huge milestone here at Absolute Trust Counsel—drum roll, please—the launch of our 200th Absolute Trust Talk episode! What started as an idea while driving down the road after a guest appearance on a financial advisor’s radio show has become a trusted resource for thousands of listeners over the years. Kirsten’s dream was always to have a platform where she could share the expertise of smart professionals she knows—financial planners, accountants, insurance experts, and fellow attorneys—with anyone who could benefit from their knowledge, and to explore the myths, misconceptions, and commonly overlooked estate planning details. From all of us at Absolute Trust Counsel, we want to say THANK YOU! We are deeply grateful to everyone who watches, listens, comments, subscribes, and shares our slice of the airwaves.
And speaking of commonly overlooked details, in this celebratory episode, Kirsten continues her “Estate Planning Misses” series by tackling Health Savings Accounts. While HSAs offer valuable tax benefits, there’s a simple estate planning step most HSA owners completely overlook—and skipping it could create unnecessary tax bills and legal headaches for the people you leave behind.
Kirsten explains why naming a beneficiary on your HSA is essential, what happens if you don’t, and the critical difference between how spouses and non-spouses are treated. Unlike IRAs, non-spouse beneficiaries face an immediate tax hit that wipes out the account’s value.
Time-stamped Show Notes:
0:00 Introduction
2:06 Kirsten’s vision for educating listeners through expert knowledge
3:28 The pandemic pivot to video and thank you to the audience
5:27 Introduction to the Estate Planning Misses series
5:45 What Health Savings Accounts are and who qualifies for them–you need a high-deductible health insurance plan to participate
6:42 The tax advantages that make HSAs attractive: pre-tax contributions and tax-free spending on medical expenses
7:12 Why HSAs typically don’t hold large amounts–the 2026 contribution limit is $4,400 for individuals, and balances roll over year to year
7:42 How HSAs are similar to IRAs: pre-tax money, annual contribution limits, and special treatment for surviving spouses
8:12 The critical difference: when non-spouse beneficiaries inherit an HSA, they immediately owe income tax on the entire balance–unlike IRAs
8:47 Why you must designate a death beneficiary on your HSA, even though it’s not a large account
9:17 The spouse advantage: married HSA owners should always name their spouse as beneficiary to avoid tax consequences and legal complications
9:52 Making it easier for your executor or trustee: why proper beneficiary designation simplifies estate administration
10:17 The action step: if you have an HSA, check whether you’ve named a beneficiary–and if you haven’t, you can do it today
Transcript:
Hello and welcome to Absolute Trust Talk. I am Kirsten Howe and today I’m going to get a little bit meta. I’m going to talk about the podcast on the podcast because we have reached a significant milestone. We recorded our two hundredth episode.
So I’m just going to talk a little bit about this project that we’ve been working on for all these years. How it started–I was invited to be a guest on a radio show that a financial advisor had every week. He did, and I think still does, a radio show. And I was a guest. That was the first time I’ve ever been on the radio. And he did a great job. He was a great host. I had a lot of fun. And I got a lot of really great feedback, including he invited me to join him and partner with him on the show, which was quite an honor. But I didn’t quite feel like that was what I wanted to do.
But I knew that I really wanted to do something like that. And honestly, for many years, my dream job had always been to be somebody like Ray Suarez on Talk of the Nation back in the day or Michael Krasny on Forum–to have a radio show where I was the boss and I was interviewing people that I found interesting. So that was in the back of my mind.
And just one day after that show, I was driving down the road and I thought, “I can do a podcast. It doesn’t have to be a radio show. It doesn’t have to be that fancy. It doesn’t have to be that big a production”–although podcasts are a much bigger production than you might think. And so that was how the idea came about.
My vision was always about educating people. I knew and still do know and still work with many very smart, very capable professionals in related industries–financial planners, accountants, insurance people, all kinds of people and other kinds of lawyers. And I know a lot of things. I’ve learned a lot of things from my colleagues along the way because I have lunch with them. I sit with them at dinner meetings. I have the opportunity to talk to these people and learn from them. And I always thought that it would be really great if there was a way that I could share what they know with my own clients, because these are things that everybody should know and would benefit from knowing. And so that was always the premise–that we’d have guests on who could share what they do and what they know with me, and everyone in the audience could learn from it.
And so in the beginning, I didn’t know any podcasters. The only podcasters I knew were like famous people, comedians, true crime podcasters. I just didn’t know personally anyone who was doing podcasting. And so I was a little sheepish about it. But I asked my good friends to come on the show because I figured, you know, they would be nice and they wouldn’t say no. And sure enough, we got a bunch of episodes right out of the gate from some really great professionals. And turns out over the years, I’ve never had anyone say no. So, you know, don’t get in your own way is maybe a lesson there.
Over the years, we’ve changed the format a little bit. In the pandemic, we added video. We did it over electronic video, Zoom-like format, because we couldn’t have people coming into the office to record with our equipment. And so that was a little bit of a pivot, but it turns out it was a great pivot for us and for our audience.
Some of those earlier videos are still to this day–I mean, I’m talking five-year-old videos–are still the most watched month over month for years and years. So the video format, it really speaks to people. And one of my favorite things about being on video now is that people watch you on video and they get a sense of maybe who you are and what you’re like. What I see is a lot of times they feel as though they know me because they’ve seen a bunch of my videos over the years. And people who I don’t know who are coming in to meet with me for the first time will see me out in the hallway and say, “Oh, hi, Kirsten,” which is always just so humbling and delightful.
So I’ve enjoyed doing this podcast thoroughly. I am so grateful for all of the people who watch it and comment on it, like it, subscribe to it, listen to it. I just can’t thank you all enough. And we’re going to keep going. So thank you for listening. Thank you for watching.
This the second in a short little series of episodes that we’re going to be doing. I explained last time—it’s more about me sharing with you things that I’ve learned, insights that I’ve gained over the years, as opposed to educating you about something new that you didn’t know. The point being to help you avoid what I call estate planning misses: the missteps, the misconceptions, the mishaps that can happen even though we have a perfectly good, well-written estate plan. There are things around the edges that sometimes you can do, if you know about them, to make things go a little bit better.
Right now, I’m going to talk about Health Savings Accounts. Not everybody has these. In fact, probably most people don’t. These are very particular savings accounts that you are allowed to set up if you participate in what’s called a high-deductible health insurance plan. Not all health insurance plans qualify for this, but if you have a plan like that, you are allowed to set up a Health Savings Account for yourself, and you can put money in it to save toward your high deductible. You go to the doctor, you have your wellness visits—all of that’s covered by the plan—but then anything beyond that, you have to start paying for until you reach your deductible. And these accounts allow you to save for that.
What’s really nice about them is that the money you put into the Health Savings Account is tax-deductible, just like an IRA, just like a 401(k). You’re kind of saving money on taxes. The government is encouraging you to save for your medical expenses, and then if you spend the money on medical expenses, you still aren’t paying the tax. That’s kind of a nice little bump that you get to encourage you to save for your medical expenses.
Okay, these are regular savings accounts—they’re just labeled Health Savings Accounts, and people have them. The amount that you can put in a given year is limited. For 2026, it’s going to be $4,400 for an individual. It’s not a lot of money. And even though you can roll it over from year to year—like if you don’t use it in a year, you roll it over, you get to keep it, you’re not forfeiting it—it still is never going to add up to a whole lot of money. We’re not really talking about probate here. We’re just talking about ways to make things simple and less hassle for your loved ones.
The thing about Health Savings Accounts is, in a lot of ways, they are very similar to an IRA. I just told you—it’s pre-tax money. You get a tax deduction when you put money into it. There is a limit to how much you can put in a given year, same as with an IRA. Also, when you die, if you have a surviving spouse and they inherit your Health Savings Account, they can turn it into their own Health Savings Account—no tax ramifications.
But unlike an IRA, if you die and you leave your Health Savings Account to someone other than your spouse, they immediately have to pay the tax on that money—the income tax that you never paid during your lifetime. But the important point, and I’m hoping that you picked it up from what I said and what I didn’t say, is that you have to designate a death beneficiary on your Health Savings Account.
Now, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t, because as I said, it’s generally a small amount of money. It’s not going to trigger a probate unless there’s already going to be a probate anyway, and then it’s going to get pulled into the probate. But it’s so much simpler to designate a death beneficiary. And if you’re married, it’s so much better to designate your spouse than to have it just go by default to your estate, and then we have to do a bunch of legal work to get it.
These are accounts that a lot of people don’t think about as assets, but they are assets. And handling them correctly could really make a difference for your successor, your executor, or your trustee. It could make it a lot easier for them and clearer. I encourage you to think about this. If you do have a Health Savings Account, investigate whether you’ve named a death beneficiary, and if you haven’t, you can always do that.
I hope this was helpful, and I’m so glad that you were here to listen. Thank you very much for that, and I look forward to connecting with you next time.
Resources Related to This Episode:
- A Will is Not Enough – Securing Your Legacy with Estate Planning Life can change in an instant. A will is not enough to be prepared. Get free access to our actionable E-book Guidebook #1 and start protecting your legacy today. https://absolutetrustcounsel.com/guidebooks/
- Learn how to comfortably define gray areas and assess your unique needs to build a secure future now effortlessly. Check out Guidebook #2, Estate Planning Beyond the Basics, here > https://absolutetrustcounsel.com/guidebooks/
- Get our free introductory guide to the most used estate planning tool, family trusts, and understand how we plan to help protect your family. Guidebook #3: https://absolutetrustcounsel.com/guidebooks/
- Absolute Trust Counsel would love to offer access to our Incapacity Planning resource page: https://AbsoluteTrustCounsel.com/Incapacity-Planning/. We’ve collected our top planning information all in one place so listeners can find videos, guidebooks, blog posts, and a host of information with tips and strategies on implementing, planning, and protecting themselves and their loved ones.
- We’re pleased to provide a library of e-books to address common estate planning questions and concerns in practical, easy-to-understand language. https://AbsoluteTrustCounsel.com/Resources/.
- ASK KIRSTEN: If you’d like Kirsten to answer your question on the air, please email her at Info@AbsoluteTrustCounsel.com.
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