The Ultimate Guide for Moving Your Missing Funds Out of Inspira Financial

I saw in other threads that many people were struggling to recover their funds, so I prepared this post for anyone who may experience this in the future and needs help recovering and transferring their accounts.

My former employer moved my 401(k) account to Inspira Financial. This usually happens when your balance is below a certain amount, and the employer moves the funds to save on administrative costs.

I discovered this when I checked my previous account custodian and realized my balance was zero. I contacted their customer service team, and they confirmed they mailed a check to Inspira about a month earlier. However, Inspira never contacted me, and I did not receive any notification, so my account was essentially “lost.”

I spoke with several representatives at Inspira Financial. Not all of them were familiar with this situation, but fortunately, one representative was able to help. Below are the steps I took to recover my funds:

1. Contact Inspira Financial and provide the required information, such as the check number, institution name, former employer name, and any other relevant details, so they can locate the missing funds.

2. After they located the funds (this took about 3 days), I was able to claim the account through their website under “Claim My Retirement Account.” You can complete this step without waiting for the letter they mail to you.

3. At this point, you can leave the funds with Inspira, but I chose to move them because their interface isn’t very user-friendly and they charge an annual fee.

I decided to transfer the funds to another brokerage. However, Inspira requires the receiving brokerage to submit the transfer form. My first attempt was to transfer to a brokerage that used ACAT or partnered with Capitalize, but they only supported electronic IRA transfers, which Inspira does not accept.

I then found out that Webull supports this type of transfer. They provided an IRA Transfer Form (Non-ACAT Eligible), which I filled out and emailed to them (instructions for direct rollover here). On the form, you can choose whether Inspira sends the funds by paper check or wire transfer (wire transfers incur extra fees).

Before submitting the forms, I opened two IRA accounts with Webull, one Rollover IRA and one Roth IRA (they allow up to three IRA accounts). As a premium user, I also received a 3.5% match, which helped offset the fees charged by Inspira.

After emailing the forms to Webull, they replied the next day, confirming that they had forwarded my request to the appropriate team. A couple of days later, they notified me that the forms had been sent to Inspira. Inspira took a day or two to close my account and charge the annual and account closure fees.

From that point, it took about a week for the funds to be transferred into my new accounts.

You can also do an indirect rollover, where the funds are sent directly to you, but this requires tax withholding and can create tax complications.