Personal Insurance in Singapore

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Overview: Personal Insurance page is a memory dump of things I have learnt or discovered lately while reading up more on personal insurance. I’m far from an expert or professional, but hopefully with enough simple info to get by.

Objectives

  1. Coverage for a family of 2 adults and 2 young children
  2. Largely separate from investment or savings, as we intend to leave this to other sources (again, not perfect, but acceptable)

Insurance types we like or have

(note this section is not particularly sorted by coverage, maybe it would work better as a matrix table)

  1. Whole Life: AIA Guaranteed Protect Plus
  • AIA GPP Protect for the adults
  • What it has: Life, TPD, CI, with multiplier till a certain age
  • Why: One of our earliest plans after IP. Allows us to not panic about having zero coverage, and have a longterm base to depend on. We like the limited pay feature. We know the Life, TPD amounts arent “sufficiently” high, but it’s ok as it’s just a base and was ok at that time because no kids/dependents back then. We don’t depend on it as inheritance, it’s just nice-to-have extras.
  1. Integrated shield Plans (IPs): Different company IPs up till Private coverage and the lower tier riders
  • Singlife for me, AIA for her, Income for kids
  • All have Private tier cover, with the lower rider
  • Why: due to company subsidy, it was worthwhile to go for private tier cover. Rider wise, we didn’t feel that risk wise really justified going all out, so a balance.
  • Who: We just decided on different companies back then. I like the AIA’s comprehensive covers, esp as females might have more needs. Noted the premiums are always higher ouch. Singlife is decently in between. Income was recommended as their premiums were affordably priced and balanced (before the latest hoo-ha made me kinda regret taking up with them, but kids are clear so easy to change if needed)
  • Avoid: GE, PRU as never liked those companies in terms of value.
  • If no financial concerns we would ideally keep this forever. Meaning if really rich as the premiums really do escalate alarmingly. One of the things worth spending on perhaps.
  • For kids, KKH and NUH have really good service, we trust them, and we would still go gov for less urgent or predictable issues. But if it’s a super long queue, we would like the option to urgently go private. Why be so rich in other areas and poor in health areas right?
  1. Term: Singlife (Mindef) Group Term
  • Life and Personal Injury coverage for 2 adults, a bit for the 2 kids
  • Add-on as the whole life is insufficent at this life stage where we have young kids. Don’t care too much about it when old or no liabilities and dependents.
  • It’s really cheap to take up
  • Not worried about it being a group plan, if it really comes to that, at worst buy a normal one later, already have savings up front right.
  • Did not take up the CI/ECI portions.
  • Added a bit for the 2 kids as it’s really low premiums and why not, in case anything so serious happens
  1. Personal Accident: Income PA Secure
  • We didn’t see this as too urgent, so we opted for a v basic plan, family plan even
  • Very worth the premium, super worth.
  • Very suited for preschool as well as it covers HFMD and missing school
  • Might change in the future when kids are out of preschool. Anyway PA plans are low commitment.
  • Strong note that it only covers accidents and injuries, not illnesses which is still mostly out of pocket, yuck
  1. Careshield Life supplement: GE
  • So far only purchased for 1 adult. Female premiums really high
  • Bit of a hedge, not urgent to buy, the returns for females are iffy
  • I feel like high change of claiming during last few years of life.

Outcome

So far we try not to overpurchase. Our premiums are fairly up there due to the Whole Life, but we feel ok financially on it. No need to die-die follow Term+Invest as long as you are comfortable. We have no ILP, Endowment, Savings plans all that nonsense, anything with zero coverage.

We don’t necessarily insure to all the ‘recommended’ amounts as some things we consider can ‘self-insure’.

Your financial situation might vary. and your household risk level might vary.

Still considering on

  • Disability Income Insurance (look at mindef or GE)
  • rounding out careshield life supplement
  • ECI for adults or additional CI for adults
  • ECI/CI for kids