The held-away 401(k) becomes a fee line

The $5,532 sitting in the average health savings account doesn't look like a growth asset, and neither does the 401(k) a client left at an old employer, gathering statements no one reads. Each sits outside the advisor's custodial grasp and has therefore been treated as someone else's problem. Pontera is about to change that.

In September, the firm launches a supervised, nondiscretionary option for held-away 401(k)s that lets advisors recommend changes and clients execute them inside a supervised channel, all without taking a trading mandate or moving the account from the current recordkeeper. The held-away 401(k) becomes a serviceable, billable asset, freeing the advisor from the one-time rollover sit-down and the "call me when you leave the job." The shift is operational as much as financial: you no longer need to wait for a rollover that may never come to get paid for work you were already doing for free.

The average HSA balance of $5,532 is a record, and only 18% of holders invest beyond cash, leaving the other 82% sitting in a tax-free growth vehicle doing nothing but keeping pace with medical inflation. It is the quietest contradiction in wealth management: an account designed to compound without taxation, left by its owners as a glorified checking account because no one told them to click the button. That conversation—short, specific, and recurring—is already a service at a handful of practices and will soon be expected.

The same client with an old 401(k) at a previous employer almost certainly has an HSA that is not fully invested, and because the account sits off the advisor's custodian statement it escapes the quarterly review. Pulling it into the conversation gives the advisor two things: a new service to charge for and a reason to contact the client outside the usual quarterly cadence. The HSA is, in effect, a trojan horse for the broader retirement-income conversation—a way to talk about Medicare premiums, out-of-pocket spending, and the gap between what the client assumes and what the math shows.

Medicare Advantage satisfaction slipped for a second straight year, and that small but real slippage in satisfaction opens a door for advisors: an annual Medicare coverage review, done in late fall before the enrollment window closes, becomes a scheduled item on the retirement income calendar. It is not about selling a policy; it is about checking whether the plan a client picked three years ago still fits their medical spending reality, a service that lands on the day-to-day budget and gives a reason to meet every year, not every other year.

Financial Finesse, the workplace wellness provider, ties virtual wellness check-ins to 401(k) persistence and retirement readiness, and the data suggests a client who never hears from their advisor between quarterly reviews is more likely to let the old 401(k) drift—to stop contributing, stop checking statements, stop thinking about retirement at all. A virtual wellness check-in, a scheduled chat about health and spending, is cheap and scalable, giving the advisor a reason to call and the client a reason to stay engaged. Satisfaction with Medicare coverage and persistence with the 401(k) are both upstream of the same outcome: a client who feels prepared and stays with the practice.

A retirement-income monitoring service, as this publication sees it, has three components: pull in the held-away assets—the 401(k), the HSA, the Medicare coverage summary—set a recurring calendar with an annual Medicare review in the fall, a half-year HSA check-up, and a wellness call in the spring, and be explicit with the client that the service has a price. The Pontera channel supplies the billing handle for the 401(k) recommendations, while the HSA and Medicare work can ride in the same monitoring fee; some practices will set a flat quarterly retainer, others will fold it into the existing planning fee, but the important thing is to name it as a service, not a courtesy.

The clients are already in the book and the account statements already exist; the Pontera launch in September is the moment when the held-away 401(k) becomes addressable and billable, and the HSA and Medicare data make the case that the opportunity is not confined to the small sliver of clients with complex equity compensation but extends to the everyday retiree and the mid-career professional with a full HSA and an old 401(k) who most need a coordinated review.

Practices don't need to become retirement-income specialists, but those that keep treating the old 401(k) and the cash-docked HSA as someone else's problem are leaving a fee line open, and it will be claimed by whoever is willing to talk about money that isn't under the custodian's roof—a bank, a recordkeeper, or a competitor down the street. The September launch is the date that makes that conversation billable; the practices that run the HSA check-up and the Medicare review before the fall enrollment window closes will have a full year of client meetings their competitors won't.