Life cover you need.
Recommended cover
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Income replacement portion
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Your breakdown
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Adding up what your family would need
This calculator uses the needs approach to life cover rather than a crude multiple of salary. The logic is to build up the total your family would actually need if you died, then subtract what they already have. You clear outstanding debts, above all the home loan, replace your income for the years your family depends on it, add a buffer for your children’s education, and then take away your savings, the investable part of your CPF, and any cover already in force. What remains is the gap a life policy should fill. It is built for anyone with people who rely on their income, a spouse, young children, or ageing parents, who wants a number grounded in their real obligations rather than a salesperson’s rule of thumb.
A breadwinner with two kids
Take the defaults: an income of $100,000 a year to replace over 15 years, a mortgage and other debts of $500,000, an education buffer of $200,000, and $300,000 of existing savings, investable CPF, and current cover. The income replacement portion alone is $100,000 multiplied by 15, which is $1,500,000. Add the debts and education buffer, subtract the assets, and the recommended cover comes to $1,900,000.
The income replacement piece is the largest single driver, which is why the years-to-replace input matters so much. Set it to the age your youngest child becomes financially independent, not an arbitrary round number, and the result tracks your real obligation.
Why DPS rarely closes the gap
Most working Singaporeans and PRs are automatically covered by the Dependants' Protection Scheme, but it is a safety net, not a plan. Its maximum sum assured is modest, in the region of $70,000 to $88,000, which in the example above would cover well under a tenth of the recommended figure. Treating DPS as your family’s life insurance is the most common and most dangerous mistake I see. Count it as part of your existing cover in the assets field, then size a proper policy for the rest. The gap between what DPS pays and what a family with a $500,000 mortgage actually needs is precisely the gap this tool is designed to expose.
Term over whole life for the shortfall
Once you know the gap, the cheapest way to cover it is almost always term insurance. A large sum assured on a term policy costs a fraction of the same cover wrapped in a whole life or endowment plan, because you are paying purely for protection rather than building a savings pot inside the policy. My practical tip is to ladder the cover: buy a large term policy now, while the mortgage is high and the children are young, and let it lapse as the loan shrinks and the kids become independent, since your need genuinely falls over time. There is no estate or inheritance tax in Singapore on the payout, so the full sum assured reaches your family intact, which makes a clean term policy an efficient way to leave them solvent.
Should I include my CPF as an asset here?
Include the portion your family could actually access, broadly your CPF savings that would be distributed on death, since CPF is paid to your nominees outside your will. Do not double-count money already earmarked for a specific liability. If your CPF Ordinary Account is funding the very mortgage you have listed as a debt, be careful not to subtract it twice.
How often should I revisit the number?
Recalculate after any major change: a new mortgage, a new child, a salary jump, or a debt paid off. The needs figure moves with your life, and a sum assured set when you were single and renting will be badly wrong once you have a flat and dependants. A quick review every couple of years, and after each big event, keeps your cover aligned with the obligations it is meant to protect.