How I Plan My Family's Insurance As A Certified Financial Planner

Daniel Lee
12 hours ago
8 min read

As we hit new life stages — a home, a marriage, a child — our insurance needs shift.

This is a full breakdown of the policies I actually hold and pay for as a Certified Financial Planner, meant as a benchmark you can compare against your own coverage to find gaps or inefficiencies.

Rather than walking through the theory of instrument selection (for example, why term over whole life), I'll give you the following breakdown for each policy I currently hold:

When it was purchased — so you understand the cost relative to age of entry
Whether it's a need or a want – so you understand what to prioritise
Why it was purchased – the purpose of considering the insurance
Why this level of coverage was selected, and when it matures

Disclaimer: This is what I did for my own family and why — not financial advice. Seek personal advice for your own situation.

The article is broken into the segments below. Feel free to skip to the one most relevant to you:

My Portfolio At A Glance
Hospital Insurances
Life Insurances
Long Term Care Insurances
Summary: Key Take Away

Every section is hyperlinked; you may skip to the respective segment you feel is most relevant to your situation or interest today by clicking on it above.

My Portfolio At A Glance

I hold insurance in only three categories — hospitalisation, life, and long-term care.

In my view, these are all you need to be well covered in Singapore. Personal accident, hospital cash and similar add-ons offer negligible scope; I treat them as wants, not needs.

I’ve written more regarding this here: 3 Types Of Insurance You Must Have To Not Go Broke In Singapore!. I’ll also be explaining further as we move into the individual policies, so no worries!

At first glance, the total cost may look intimidating, but note that — apart from hospital insurance — every policy has a premium end date, with most fully paid up by around age 55.

This means my coverage continues into retirement without my having to finance it during those years. My retirement plan carries no premium drag from insurance — which is a common reason people surrender policies in retirement, ironically the very period when the probability of a claim is highest if they haven't already claimed.

Around 45% of my total premiums go toward life insurance I consider non-essential — purchased for reasons beyond the core coverages of healthcare financing, income replacement, and liability protection.

If we strip out the non-essential life insurance (marked with a 🎁 beside the name), the annual premiums and coverage for just the essential policies work out roughly as follows:

If you're looking for a rough benchmark for essential coverage alone, the figures above are a useful reference point.

Hospital Insurance

Policy Name:

Enhanced IncomeShield Preferred (with Essential Care Rider)

Is It Essential:

Yes - Mandatory

Purchase Year/Age:

Age 31 (2026). Switched from HSBC Life to NTUC Income after the 2026 hospitalisation changes, alongside a new policy for my daughter (age 0).

Purpose of Coverage:

Cover lifetime hospital costs from accident or illness. Self-financing a full bill makes no economic sense, so an Integrated Shield Plan transfers that risk.

Sum Assured Logic:

Private hospital coverage — chosen for shorter, more predictable waiting times. A lifestyle choice; Public A ward is enough if you'd rather not pay for it, especially in older age.

General Comments:

The switch saved roughly $180,000 in lifetime premiums, giving up some non-CDL tail-end coverage. I redirected the savings into a whole-life policy for alternative healthcare financing (below).

You can read more about the hospitalization changes in 2026 and my above rationale more deeply here: Hospital Insurance Changes [April 2026]

Watch the trade-off: Shield Plan premiums are payable for life and rise steeply with age. The private-vs-public premium gap is large, so fence-sitting rarely pays — you risk paying for coverage you don't use, then downgrading exactly when hospitalisation is most likely.

Life Insurance

1. Income Replacement For Self

Policy Name:

Singlife MyWholeLife Plan (III)

Is It Essential:

Yes - Mandatory

Purchase Year/Age:

2019, age 24 — shortly after starting as a financial planner.

Purpose of Coverage:

Replace my income if disability or critical illness impairs my earning ability. Earmarked for self-consumption — for my personal lifestyle expenses, not for liabilities or dependants.

Sum Assured Logic:

Annual income × a 5 to 8-year recovery window (the typical time to recover from critical illness). Whole life fits because the need is lifelong, at similar or lower total outlay than term plan over the same horizon.

General Comments:

In hindsight, I'd have done two things differently: added early-stage critical illness coverage and committed to a higher sum assured to future-proof the need. Sizing it off my entry-level self-employed income was too conservative and too low.

2. Liabilities Protection For Self

Policy Name:

HSBC Life Term Protector

Is It Essential:

Yes - if your situation requires

Purchase Year/Age:

Age 26 — after securing my BTO (Cost: $369,000).

Purpose of Coverage:

Cover the HDB loan,
Provide for future dependants
Top up income replacement during the critical years given the low initial whole-life coverage.

Sum Assured Logic:

Given that the HDB loan is small and fully clearable from assets, I added $500,000 of term coverage purely for dependants and income replacement.

Total coverage combined with Singlife whole-life plan: $750,000 total ($500k income replacement / $250k dependants).

General Comments:

Given the temporary nature of the need, a term plan offered the best cost-benefit trade-off over that period.

I set the coverage to age 70 as a buffer for scenarios where the need might persist (for example, upgrading property and taking on more liability), even though the theoretical coverage need declines over time if my plans don't change.

Locking in coverage today avoids having to buy more coverage later at a higher age of entry if my financial plans or situation changes — while keeping the flexibility to reduce or cancel it whenever I want.

3. Alternative Healthcare Financing & Legacy Planning

Policy Name:

China Taiping iSecure Legacy (II)

Is It Essential:

Purchase Year/Age:

2026, age 31 — newborn daughter + hedge against any further government hospital-benefit changes.

Purpose of Coverage:

This policy serves two purposes:

If I'm alive and suffer a critical illness, the payout acts as a buffer for alternative healthcare financing (specifically non-CDL) and hedges against future deterioration of my hospital insurance benefits.
If I never use it for healthcare, the coverage rolls into my legacy planning — part of the assets transferred to my dependants when I'm gone.

Sum Assured Logic:

After years of premium increases and benefit cuts, I switched to a more cost-effective hospital insurer, accepting lower non-CDL coverage in exchange.

To offset that drop in non-CDL coverage (from $360,000/yr to $180,000/yr), I added $400,000 of life insurance coverage.

This brings my total life coverage between ages 70 and 85 to roughly $500,000 to $600,000 which is more than enough to offset any cost of alternative treatment should I wish to pursue it then.

General Comments:

Economically, this lets me maximise the expected payout: non-CDL is a tail-end risk, while a critical illness diagnosis is a higher-probability event.

At the same time, the flexibility of the life insurance payouts allows me to make provisions for my legacy plans should there be no need to pursue non-cdl treatment in my lifetime.

On the health care financing strategy side, having the coverage serve as an alternative health care financing vehicle also gives me the flexibility to surrender the Integrated Shield Plan rider if its cost-benefit stops making sense, while still funding non-CDL treatment through the payout from a cancer diagnosis.

I’ve written more extensively regarding the cost for non-CDL which you can read more here: Hospital Insurance Changes [April 2026]

4. Income Replacement/Gift For Daughter

Policy Name:

FWD Life Protection

Is It Essential:

No – but good to have

Purchase Year/Age:

2026. When I was 31 and my daughter is 0.

Purpose of Coverage:

Buying life insurance on a dependent's life serves two purposes:

Income replacement for me as the policy owner: if something happens to my daughter (the life insured), it lets us as parents take time off work to care for her through recovery.
A headstart for her: it provides most of her future income-replacement needs, so she won't have to buy the same coverage later at a much higher cost (see below).

Sum Assured Logic:

Unlike the earlier categories, there's no hard rule here. Generally, $300,000 to $500,000 covers both purposes; I chose $500,000 to future-proof against inflation.

General Comments:

If you previously bought a maternity plan for your child and converted it into a whole-life policy, it may be worth revisiting your child's portfolio, as converted whole-life plans are often severely uncompetitive on price.

Use the premiums below as a reference point; in my experience, the converted plan rarely competes well.

Long Term Care Insurance

Policy Name:

Singlife CareShield Plus

Is It Essential:

Yes

Purchase Year/Age:

Age 30 — the earliest possible.

Purpose of Coverage:

Cover caregiver costs in the event of disability.

Sum Assured Logic:

Government CareShield Life currently pays up to $1,400/month in disability income. I added $2,200/month on top, bringing the total to around $3,600/month.

This ensures the cost of a domestic helper as the primary caregiver is covered. The inflation-adjusted monthly maintenance cost of a domestic helper runs about $2,400–$3,974/month — based on today's cost ($1,100–$1,800/month) adjusted for 2% annual inflation over 40 years.

General Comments:

Because this only covers a domestic helper - not the full cost of a public (unsubsidised) or private nursing home - I expect to revisit this when I do my advance care planning in the coming years.

For reference, the inflation-adjusted monthly cost of an unsubsidised public or private nursing home (2%/yr over 40 years) is roughly $7,728 to $12,144.

If my children ever choose to take time off to care for me directly, this coverage compensates them for the opportunity cost of doing so.

Summary: Key Take Away

Insurance planning in Singapore doesn't have to be complicated. As you've seen, my entire family portfolio sits in just three categories — hospitalisation, life, and long-term care — each sized to a specific, defensible need, and structured so the premiums are paid up before retirement.

The point of sharing the actual policies, costs and reasoning isn't for you to copy them. Your liabilities, dependants, income and life stage are different from mine. The point is to give you a working reference so you can ask the right questions of your own portfolio:

Am I covered in all three essential categories — or paying for “wants” I don't need?
Has a life-stage change (new property, marriage, a child) opened a gap I haven't addressed?
Will my premiums still be running during retirement, when I can least afford them?
Is any existing policy (for example, a converted maternity plan) quietly uncompetitive?

If reviewing your own portfolio against mine has surfaced a gap or you simply want a second opinion on whether your coverage is right-sized, reach out to me directly, and we'll work through it together.

Disclaimer: This article reflects my personal decisions and rationale, and is not financial advice. Please seek professional advice tailored to your own circumstances.

Daniel is a Licensed Independent Financial Consultant with MAS and a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®).

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