Exante Financial Services has developed three different kinds of health savings accounts to expand in the market.
One account will be aimed at customers who keep low balances, another at those who keep high balances, and a third at those looking for a long-term investment vehicle, said John Prince, the UnitedHealth Group Inc. unit's chief executive officer.
Monthly maintenance fees, interest rates, and thresholds for investing holdings in mutual funds will vary among the accounts.
"As an industry, we've been putting everybody into a one-size-fits-all account," Mr. Prince said in an interview last week. "Until now there has not been a lot of innovation on the HSA account itself."
The new accounts will be offered through Exante Bank, which UnitedHealth chartered five years ago. Exante Financial based its product segmentation on a study of more than 200,000 of its health savings account holders, Mr. Prince said.
One of the new accounts, a basic product dubbed Health eAccess, is available now and provides easy access to funds and a "lower monthly maintenance fee" that is applies if the balance is less than $500, Exante said.
The other two accounts will be rolled out in the fourth quarter.
The Health eSaver account, which is insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., targets customers who are likely to carry higher balances. Its interest rate rises according to the account's balance, and account holders with balances above $2,000 will not be charged for access to investments, the company said.
The Health eInvestor account is intended for customers looking for long-term savings and investments, Exante said. Account holders will get access to investments once they have accrued $500.
Exante said that it plans to provide consumers with an analysis tool to help them choose an account, and that they will be able to switch for free from one account to another.
Mr. Prince would not reveal the fees and rates for the accounts.
JoAnn Laing, the president and CEO of Information Strategies Inc., a Palisades Park, N.J., firm that tracks the health savings account market, said costs will determine the success of Exante's new strategy.
"The question I have and everybody will have is whether the value they are offering is going to be that great," she said. "That's the key to this."
When it comes to interest and fees, Exante may find that its toughest rivals are not big banks, but credit unions, which offer high rates and low fees, Ms. Laing said.
The expanded options should not confuse consumers, she said. "Providers have been consistently underestimating the American public on this issue."
Exante Bank has reported that it has about 300,000 health savings accounts. According to Mr. Prince, the accounts contain nearly $400 million of deposits.
A study that Exante conducted and released last week found that about half of its account holders are "spenders," and most of the rest are "savers."
Less than 5% of the account holders are "investors," but early trends indicate they may eventually hold the largest collective balance, Exante said.
On average, the "spenders" carry a balance of around $400 to $600 and spend 80% of their contributions on current medical expenses, the study said. "Savers" have an average balance of nearly $1,500 and spend less than 10% of their contributions on current health-care expenses. The "investors" have an average balance of more than $2,000 in their deposit accounts, and they invest $3,000 in Exante's eight nonproprietary mutual funds.
