Find your disability income coverage gap after CareShield Life.
Monthly coverage gap
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Monthly expenses
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CareShield Life benefit
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Coverage gap (annual)
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Your breakdown
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Why CareShield Life alone is rarely enough
CareShield Life was designed as a safety net for severe disability in old age, specifically for people who can no longer perform three or more basic activities of daily living. The starting payout of about $600 per month is meaningful but not sufficient for most working-age adults to maintain their lifestyle or service a mortgage. A Singaporean with monthly expenses of $3,500 who becomes severely disabled would face a gap of roughly $2,900 per month even after receiving CareShield Life. That gap over 20 years of disability is approximately $696,000, which is the motivation for topping up with a supplementary disability income plan or a conventional income protection policy.
Severe disability versus working disability: two different problems
The insurance industry broadly treats disability in two ways. Severe disability under CareShield Life is the inability to perform three of six activities of daily living, a very high bar that most working-age people will never reach even during a serious illness. Working disability, by contrast, is the inability to perform your occupation or any occupation, which triggers income protection and disability income plans. A cancer patient on chemotherapy is working-disabled for months but is not severely disabled under the ADL test. A person with severe depression who cannot leave the house is not severely disabled under the ADL test. These are the situations where a conventional income protection plan pays and CareShield Life does not. This is why the financial planning industry treats them as complementary rather than overlapping products.
How supplementary disability income insurance premiums are priced
Supplementary CareShield Life plans are offered by Great Eastern, NTUC Income, and Aviva. Premiums are partly payable from MediSave (within the annual withdrawal limits) and rise with age. For a standalone disability income plan covering general work incapacity, premiums are typically 1 to 2.5 percent of the annual benefit sum, depending on age, health, and the benefit period chosen. A plan providing $2,900 per month of benefit for a 35-year-old in good health might cost approximately $500 to $900 per year. Premiums increase substantially above age 45, which is another reason to secure the cover while young and healthy. The estimates in this calculator are illustrative and use the premium rate you set on the form, which should be replaced with a proper quotation from an insurer.