Overview
If you pay health insurance premiums out of pocket, you may be able to claim the eligible medical and dental portion through your Health Spending Account (HSA).
This can include premiums for:
- A workplace health insurance plan that you pay yourself through payroll deductions
- An individual health insurance plan for you or one of your dependants
The details
What part of my premium is eligible?
Not every part of an insurance premium qualifies as an eligible expense under CRA rules. Premiums often include a mix of eligible health and dental coverage along with ineligible benefits, such as life insurance or disability insurance.
Through your HSA, you can only be reimbursed for the eligible medical and dental portion of your premiums, so we’ll need supporting documentation that clearly shows how the premium is divided.
Employer health insurance plans
If your employer offers a health insurance plan and you pay for part or all the premium yourself, you can submit the medical and dental portion for reimbursement.
We’ll need to clearly see the amounts for the health and dental portions.
We’ll need:
- A copy of the premium breakdown showing how much each portion costs
- Confirmation that the premiums are employee-paid, usually shown on your pay stub
- The amount you pay each month so we can reimburse the correct amount
Premiums fully paid by your organization aren't eligible because you didn't pay them out of pocket.
Individual health insurance plans
If you or one of your dependants has an individual health insurance plan, you can submit the eligible medical and dental portion of the premiums for reimbursement.
We’ll need:
- A copy of the breakdown showing how much each portion costs
- Your coverage period with that Insurance Plan
- The amount you paid. If you pay monthly, we need to know how much you pay per month. If you pay annually, we need the coverage period to calculate your monthly costs.
Provincial health insurance plans
Premiums paid to a provincial health insurance plan aren’t eligible for reimbursement from your HSA.
When to submit your premiums
You can submit your premiums as you pay them or save them up and submit them later. Just make sure they’re submitted before your Claim submission cut-off date. Check out How do dates affect claim reimbursements? for HSA Classic, Enhanced, Rollback and Rollover features and HSA Select dates and claim reimbursements for HSA Select.
Anything else?
Insurance premiums can be a great way to use your HSA, but we'll need documentation showing exactly what you paid and which portions are eligible before we can reimburse your expense.
If your documentation doesn't clearly show the medical and dental portion, or the amount you paid, we'll ask for additional information before we can process your expense.