How Singaporeans Really Die and What It Means for Your Insurances

Daniel Lee

29 minutes ago

8 min read

Most people think about insurance in terms of one event: dying too early. It is the risk that feels most urgent, so it often gets covered first and covered most.

Singapore’s official data tells a different story. Most Singaporeans live long, spend years in poorer health toward the end, and die old, usually from cancer, heart disease or pneumonia. Dying young happens, but it is the least likely of the major risks.

This article uses only government sources: the Department of Statistics (SingStat), the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA), the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the CPF Board.

The goal is to rank the risks an average Singaporean face across a lifetime, then match each one to the tool designed to transfer it.

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

How Long Singaporeans Live
When Singaporeans Die
What Singaporeans Die Of
The Risk Death Statistics Do Not Show: Living Sick
Ranking The Risk & Matching The Tools
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.

1. How Long Singaporeans Live

In 2025, life expectancy at birth for Singapore residents was 83.9 years: 81.8 for men and 86.0 for women. This was 1.0 year higher than in 2015, and above the 2019 high of 83.7 years recorded before the pandemic.

Measure	Men	Women	All residents
At birth (years)	81.8	86.0	83.9
Additional years expected at age 65	19.9	23.1	21.6
Expected age reached, if alive at 65	84.9	88.1	86.6

The life expectancy at birth figure of 83.9 is not the best number for retirement or legacy planning. It averages everyone born, including the 1 in 10 men and 1 in 18 women who die before 65, and those early deaths pull the average down.

Once you reach 65, those risks are behind you, so the average for people who make it that far is higher: 86.6 years overall, 84.9 for men and 88.1 for women.

What this means for planning

Longevity is a risk you can insure. CPF LIFE and private annuities turn a lump sum into income for life, so the insurer carries the risk of you living to 95, not you.

Check how long your other policies last too. A 65 year old is expected to survive up to 86.6 years old, so hospital, critical illness or long term care cover that ends at 65 or 70 can stop just as the risk of claiming rises.

2. When Singaporeans Die

ICA registered 26,499 deaths in 2025. Of these, 87.4% were people aged 60 and above. The median age at death was 78.2 years: 75.7 for men and 82.5 for women, a gap of 6.8 years.

Singapore’s pattern has a long, thin tail of deaths before 50 and a heavy cluster from 65 onward. The single largest group, 4,331 deaths, was people aged 90 and above.

Deaths are moving later. Between 2016 and 2025, deaths among people aged 90 and above rose from 2,301 to 4,331, up 88%. Deaths in every age group under 30 fell, and so did deaths at ages 40 to 59, even as the resident population grew.

What this means for planning

Life insurance pays out on the least likely event, so it needs to be sized and timed with care. Fewer than 1 in 5 deaths happen before 65, but a death in those years hits a family with young children or a mortgage hardest. Term life is built for this: a high sum assured for a fixed period at a lower premium, timed to end when your dependants no longer rely on your income. DPS pays $70,000 up to age 60. That is a starting point, not a full replacement for income.

3. What Singaporeans Die Of

Three groups of disease caused 76.8% of all deaths in 2025: cancer (26.6%), heart and hypertensive diseases (25.5%), and lung and respiratory diseases (24.7%).

Unnatural causes, which include accidents and suicides, made up 2.0%. Cancer has been the leading cause of death in Singapore in every year from 2006 to 2023.

Inside the three largest groups:

Pneumonia caused 6,065 of the 6,549 lung and respiratory deaths.
Ischaemic heart disease (narrowed or blocked heart arteries) caused 5,605 deaths.
Lung cancer (1,436) and colorectal cancer (1,063) were the two largest cancer killers.

When a cause strikes matters as much as how often.

Cancer deaths have a median age of 73.8, more than 11 years earlier than lung and respiratory deaths (85.1). Many cancer deaths fall in the late working years or early retirement, when income, a mortgage or dependants may still be in the picture. Accidents (62.6) and suicides (48.5) strike earliest, but together account for about 2% of deaths.

The gap between men and women is widest for heart disease. Men who died of heart and hypertensive diseases had a median age of 73.5, against 83.9 for women, a gap of 10.4 years.

Cancer type	Deaths	Share of cancer deaths
Lung (trachea, bronchus and lung)	1,436	20.4%
Colorectal (colon, rectum and anus)	1,063	15.1%
Pancreas	643	9.1%
Liver	638	9.1%
Breast	560	7.9%
Stomach	267	3.8%
All cancers	7,046	100%

What this means for planning

Hospital plans pay medical bills. They do not replace your income while you are being treated or recovering. That gap is what critical illness cover is for: a lump sum paid on diagnosis of conditions such as cancer, heart attack and stroke. These three caused nearly 6 in 10 deaths in 2025, and they strike earlier than most causes.

Check that your cover is large enough to see you through recovery and lasts beyond your working years.

4. The risk death statistics do not show: Living Sick

Death statistics show how life ends. They do not show the years before it. Three sets of government data fill that gap.

a. Years lived In poor health

MOH reports that the gap between life expectancy and health-adjusted life expectancy rose from 10.6 years in 2014 to 11.2 years in 2023. In other words, the average number of years Singaporeans lived with illness or disabilities have been on the rise over the years.

**These estimates come from the Global Burden of Disease 2023 study and cover Singapore’s total population, so the life expectancy figure differs from the SingStat resident figure used earlier.

What this means for planning

Eleven years in poor health means years of medical bills, mostly in old age. MediShield Life covers everyone for life, but it is sized for subsidised wards. Integrated Shield Plans and riders cover higher ward classes and more of the bill.

Two things matter. Buy while you are healthy, because existing conditions may be excluded later. And check that you can still afford the premiums in your 70s and 80s, when they rise the most.

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b. Severe Disability & Long Term Care

MOH estimates that 1 in 2 Singaporeans who are healthy at 65 could become severely disabled in their lifetime and may need long term care. Under CareShield Life, severe disability means being unable to perform at least 3 of 6 Activities of Daily Living: washing, dressing, feeding, toileting, walking or moving around, and transferring (for example, from bed to chair).

The duration is uncertain. The median duration of severe disability is 4 years, but 3 in 10 could remain severely disabled for 10 years or more.

What this means for planning

Treat long term care as a monthly cost, not a single bill. If you become severely disabled, the expense comes every month for as long as the disability lasts. Estimate what care would cost your household each month, subtract the CareShield Life payout and decide how you would cover the difference. Extra cover for this is easier to arrange while you are healthy.

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c. Cancer Diagnosis, Not Only Cancer Death

About 1 in 4 Singapore residents could be diagnosed with cancer by age 75: an estimated 26.8% of men and 26.2% of women.

Survival has improved. The five year survival rate rose from 53% (2008 to 2012) to 61% (2019 to 2023), and cancer diagnoses among people under 40 rose 34% compared with 2003 to 2007. [7]

Better survival is good news medically. Financially, it changes the problem. More people now live through months or years of treatment and recovery, often while still of working age. The cost shifts from a death to a period of reduced or lost income, plus treatment bills.

What this means for planning

With 61% of cancer patients now surviving at least five years, the payout that matters most comes on diagnosis, not on death. Early stage critical illness cover pays at an earlier point. Multiple claim plans can pay again if cancer returns or another illness follows.

About 1 in 4 people are diagnosed by 75, and cases under 40 are rising, so cover bought young is cheaper and less likely to carry exclusions.

5. Ranking The Risk & Matching The Tools

Insurance transfers a risk you cannot afford to carry yourself to an insurer, in exchange for a premium. The useful question is not which risk feels most frightening. It is which risks are likely, and which would break your financial plan if they happened.

The two risks people tend to insure first, early death and accidents, are the least likely. The three risks most people will face are a long life, years of illness and possible disability.

Both kinds matter. Early death is unlikely, but for a young family with a mortgage its impact is the largest of all. A sound plan covers the severe risks while others depend on you, and the likely risks for the rest of your life.

6. Key Take Away

Plan for a long life first. Close to half of men and two in three women are expected to reach 85.
Plan for years in poorer health. The average gap is 11.2 years, and 1 in 2 healthy 65 year olds could become severely disabled.
Protect income while others depend on you. Early death is unlikely, but its impact on a young family is the largest.
Treat cancer and heart disease as financial events, not only medical ones. Survival is improving, so the cost now sits in the treatment and recovery years.
Know your national baseline before adding more. CPF LIFE, CareShield Life, MediShield Life and DPS are a floor, not a full plan.
Review at life events: marriage, a child, a property purchase, age 55 and age 65.

If you want to see how your current coverage lines up against these risks, a needs analysis is the place to start. To see if my services are suitable for you, you can 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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