Using insurance to gain more mileage out of CPF funds

Abstract

With the liberalisation of the CPF Investment Scheme announced in March this year, CPF members would be allowed to purchase insurance products like endowment policies using CPF monies. The team conducted a survey and found that while the CPF members are generally quite receptive to investing in insurance policies, there are still a lot of misperception and lack of knowledge on insurance among the CPF members. Furthermore, certain features of the CPF Investment Scheme were also found to be of potential impedance towards members investing in insurance product. Two other issues were also explored in this paper namely, the current provision of old age needs and medical care under the CPF. The major conclusions arrived are that: (1) The current old age provisions under the Minimum Sum Scheme (MSS) should be supplemented with additional annuities, and, (2) CPF monies should be allowed to purchase private medical insurances to supplement the current medical provisions under the CPF. The rationale for these proposals would be given in the chapters stated therein.