The Dependants' Protection Scheme (DPS) is a basic term-life policy that pays out up to $70,000 if you die, are diagnosed with a terminal illness, or become totally and permanently disabled. If you are a Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident aged 21 to 65 and have ever made a CPF working contribution, you are almost certainly enrolled already, with the yearly premium quietly deducted from your CPF. Premiums start at $18 a year for those aged 34 and below and rise with age. Great Eastern Life runs the scheme as the sole administrator, with the contract extended to 30 September 2028. The payout does not follow your CPF nomination; it follows a separate DPS nomination or your will. The honest takeaway: DPS is cheap, automatic baseline cover, but $70,000 is a fraction of what most working adults with dependants actually need, so treat it as a floor and not a plan.
DPS is a group term-life insurance scheme administered for CPF members. It covers three events: death, terminal illness, and total permanent disability (TPD). The maximum payout is $70,000 while you are aged 21 to 59, dropping to $55,000 from the policy year you turn 60 until cover ends at age 65. It is opt-out, not opt-in, so most working Singaporeans are covered by default after their first valid CPF contribution. The premium comes out of your CPF Ordinary or Special Account, so it never touches your take-home pay unless your CPF balance is too low.
It is deliberately bare-bones. There is no savings component, no cash value, no investment angle, and it expires at 65. Think of it as the insurance equivalent of a smoke alarm the government installs in every flat: useful, cheap, and not a substitute for proper protection.
If you are a Singapore Citizen or PR aged 21 to 65 and you make a valid CPF working contribution, you are automatically enrolled in DPS, subject to being in good health. You do not fill in a form, sit a medical, or sign anything. The first you usually hear of it is the premium deduction in your CPF statement, or the welcome letter from Great Eastern Life.
Two groups have to take action. People aged 16 to 20 are not auto-enrolled and must apply directly with Great Eastern Life if they want cover early. People with serious pre-existing conditions may be declined or deferred, because auto-enrolment is still subject to good health. If you have an undeclared serious condition, a later claim can be rejected, so honesty on any health declaration matters.
DPS pays a single lump sum on the first of three events. There is no partial or recurring payout; once a valid claim is paid, the cover ends.
Death is the simplest: the sum assured is paid on the member's passing. Terminal illness means an illness that a registered medical practitioner certifies is expected to result in death within 12 months. Total permanent disability has two routes: either you are permanently unable to take part in any employment, or you suffer the total permanent loss of physical function of both eyes, or two limbs, or one eye and one limb. For TPD and terminal illness, the condition or diagnosis must have occurred on or after 1 May 2016 to be claimable.
Death claims are paid according to your DPS nomination or your will. Terminal illness and TPD payouts go to you, the policyholder, or to a court-appointed deputy if you have lost mental capacity. A serious illness that does not meet the terminal or TPD definitions, such as an early-stage cancer you recover from, is not a DPS claim, which is one of the gaps a separate critical illness policy is meant to fill.
| Event | What triggers it | Who is paid |
|---|---|---|
| Death | Member passes away | DPS nominee, or per will, or proper claimant |
| Terminal illness | Doctor certifies death expected within 12 months | The member |
| Total permanent disability | Cannot work permanently, or loss of two eyes/limbs/one of each | The member (or court-appointed deputy) |
DPS premiums are flat within each age band and are based on the age you have reached at the point of payment, not the age you joined. They are billed once a year on your policy commencement date and each renewal after that. The premium rises as you get older, which is normal for term-life cover, and the jump after 50 is steep.
These are the current annual premiums set by CPF and Great Eastern Life. The $18 starting premium for the under-35s works out to about $1.50 a month for $70,000 of cover, which is hard to beat anywhere on the open market.
| Age at payment | Yearly premium | Sum assured |
|---|---|---|
| 34 and below | $18 | $70,000 |
| 35 to 39 | $30 | $70,000 |
| 40 to 44 | $50 | $70,000 |
| 45 to 49 | $93 | $70,000 |
| 50 to 54 | $188 | $70,000 |
| 55 to 59 | $298 | $70,000 |
| 60 to 64 | $298 | $55,000 |
From the policy year you turn 60, the sum assured drops from $70,000 to $55,000, yet the premium stays at $298. That is not a glitch. The risk of a claim climbs sharply with age, so even with a lower payout the cost of insuring a 60-something is broadly similar to a late-50s member. It is the same reason private term-life premiums rise fast in your 60s. If you are still relying on DPS at that age, it is a signal you have under-planned, not a good deal to celebrate.
Premiums are deducted from your CPF, first from your Ordinary Account, then your Special Account if needed. Note that since the Special Account is closed once you reach 55, members aged 55 and above can only have the premium taken from the Ordinary Account or pay it directly to Great Eastern Life. No cash is required as long as your CPF balance is sufficient. If it cannot cover the premium, Great Eastern Life bills you and you can pay by GIRO, internet banking, AXS, cash, or cheque.
Great Eastern sends a renewal notice 30 days before the renewal date, then gives you a grace period of 60 days from that date to pay. Miss the grace period and the policy lapses, meaning you lose cover. Because the deduction comes from CPF you would not otherwise touch until 55, paying for DPS rarely affects your day-to-day monthly budget at all, so the usual reason a policy lapses is a CPF balance that ran dry, not a deliberate choice.
A lapsed DPS policy is not gone for good, but the door does not stay open forever. You can reinstate it within 120 days of the renewal date by submitting a reinstatement or top-up form, paying the outstanding premium, and clearing satisfactory health underwriting. The health check is the catch: if you have developed a condition since the policy lapsed, reinstatement can be declined, which is why a thin CPF buffer is a worse risk than it looks.
There is also a separate auto path back in. If your cover lapsed on or after 1 April 2021 and you later receive a valid working CPF contribution while still aged 21 to under 65, you can be auto-enrolled again, the same way you were the first time. The same applies if you lose and then restore your Singapore Citizenship or PR status and resume CPF contributions. So for most employed members, a single fresh CPF contribution quietly puts the cover back, but you should never count on that timing for protection you actually need.
This is the part most people get wrong. Your CPF nomination decides who gets your CPF savings. It does not cover DPS. DPS payouts are not CPF money and do not form part of your CPF proceeds, so they are not governed by your CPF nomination.
DPS has its own, separate nomination. You can make a revocable DPS nomination from age 18 by submitting Great Eastern's nomination form, and you can change it later. Trust nominations are not allowed, because the law wants the policyholder to keep control of CPF-linked proceeds while alive. If you have made a DPS nomination or a valid will known to the insurer, the death payout goes to those beneficiaries. If you have neither, the money goes to a 'proper claimant' under Section 150 of the Insurance Act 1966, which can be the executor of your estate or a close family member such as a spouse, parent, child, or sibling, and that route can be slower. You can check and make your DPS nomination through the CPF website or directly with Great Eastern. It takes a few minutes and removes any doubt about where $70,000 lands at the worst possible time, which is exactly the kind of admin a basic estate plan should tidy up.
Most members never apply, because auto-enrolment does the work. Two situations need a manual step. If you are aged 16 to 20 and want cover before it kicks in at 21, you apply directly with Great Eastern: download and return the proposal form, ask a Great Eastern financial representative, or walk into the customer service centre at 1 Pickering Street. Cover is still subject to good health, so a health declaration is part of the form.
Filing a claim depends on the event. For a death claim, the nominee, the person named in the will, or a proper claimant submits the claim to Great Eastern with the death certificate and supporting documents, and the payout follows the nomination or will. For terminal illness or total permanent disability, you file the claim yourself, supported by a registered medical practitioner's certification, and the money is paid to you. If you have lost mental capacity, a court-appointed deputy or your Lasting Power of Attorney donee files and receives it on your behalf. Remember the date rule: a TPD or terminal illness condition is only claimable if it started on or after 1 May 2016. Keeping a current will and DPS nomination is what makes a death claim fast rather than fraught.
For a single 25-year-old with no dependants and no debt, $70,000 of DPS plus the cover bundled into your CPF is plenty, and you can leave it as is. The picture changes the moment someone depends on your income or you take on a mortgage.
A rough rule used by many advisers is that working adults with dependants need death and TPD cover of roughly nine to ten times annual income, on top of clearing outstanding debt. On a $60,000 salary, that is $540,000 to $600,000 of cover before counting an HDB loan. DPS contributes $70,000 of that. If your flat is financed, the Home Protection Scheme separately pays off the outstanding HDB loan on death or TPD, so the mortgage is handled, but living costs for your family are not. The gap between $70,000 and what a household actually needs is usually filled with a cheap term life policy, which costs far less than people expect for someone young and healthy.
The cheapest way to size the gap is to do the sum yourself: total your dependants' yearly costs, multiply by the years they would need support, add outstanding debt, then subtract DPS, any HPS cover, and existing policies. Whatever is left is the cover to buy. A net worth snapshot helps you see what your family would actually be left with, and the wider guide to insurance in Singapore walks through how the pieces fit together.
DPS and a private term-life policy do the same basic job, pay a lump sum if you die or are seriously disabled, but they are built for different ends of the problem. DPS is the floor: small, automatic, capped at $70,000, and gone at 65. A term policy is the part you size to your actual needs, with cover that can run into the hundreds of thousands and a term you choose, often to age 65 or 70 to match your working years and your mortgage. The two are complements, not rivals, and most working parents end up holding both.
The table below sets the two side by side so the trade-offs are clear. For deciding how much term cover to layer on top, our term versus whole life comparison and the term-and-invest versus an ILP breakdown go deeper on structure and cost.
DPS is optional. You can terminate it any time by completing an opt-out form with Great Eastern Life. The catch is that opting back in gets harder the longer you wait. Within 30 days of opting out, you can simply use the opt-back form attached to your opt-out letter. Between 30 and 120 days, you need a reinstatement form and have to pass health underwriting. After 120 days, you start over with a fresh proposal form and full underwriting. At every stage past that first month, a condition you have developed could see you declined.
For almost everyone, opting out is a mistake. The premium is small, it comes from CPF rather than cash, and it locks in cover while you are still insurable. The narrow cases where opting out can make sense are if you already hold substantial term-life cover that fully replaces it and you want to stop the CPF deduction, or if you are leaving Singapore permanently. Even then, the saving is tiny, so weigh it against losing easy re-entry. If you are unsure, stay in; the downside of keeping a $18-to-$298 policy is close to nothing.
Almost certainly, if you are a Singapore Citizen or PR aged 21 to 65 and have made a valid CPF working contribution while in good health. Enrolment is automatic and opt-out, so you do not need to apply. Check your CPF statement for the yearly DPS premium deduction, or log in to the CPF website to confirm your cover.
Premiums are flat within each age band: $18 a year if you are 34 or below, $30 from 35 to 39, $50 from 40 to 44, $93 from 45 to 49, $188 from 50 to 54, and $298 from 55 onward. The premium is based on your age at the point of payment and is deducted from your CPF, so no cash is needed if your CPF balance is sufficient.
The maximum sum assured is $70,000 while you are aged 21 to 59. From the policy year you turn 60 until cover ends at 65, the maximum drops to $55,000. The payout is a single lump sum on death, terminal illness, or total permanent disability, whichever happens first.
No. DPS benefits are not CPF savings and do not follow your CPF nomination. DPS needs its own separate nomination, made through the CPF website. If you have no DPS nomination and no will, the death payout goes to a proper claimant such as a spouse, parent, child, or sibling, which can take longer to settle.
DPS only pays on death, terminal illness, or total permanent disability. It does not cover most critical illnesses you recover from, hospital bills, or partial disability. It has no cash or investment value and expires at 65. For wider protection you would look at term life, critical illness cover, and MediShield Life plus an Integrated Shield Plan.
Usually no. The premium is small, paid from CPF rather than cash, and it secures cover while you are still insurable. Opting out ends your cover, and re-joining later requires re-applying and passing health requirements. Opting out only makes sense if you already hold far more term-life cover than DPS provides, or you are leaving Singapore for good.
Great Eastern Life is the sole DPS administrator, a role it has held since 1 April 2021 when it replaced the earlier two-insurer arrangement. CPF extended its contract to 30 September 2028. Over 2 million Singaporeans and PRs are covered under the scheme.
For a death claim, the nominee, the beneficiary named in the will, or a proper claimant submits the claim to Great Eastern Life with the death certificate and supporting documents. For terminal illness or total permanent disability, you file the claim yourself with a registered medical practitioner's certification, and the payout goes to you, or to your court-appointed deputy or Lasting Power of Attorney donee if you have lost mental capacity. TPD and terminal illness conditions are only claimable if they started on or after 1 May 2016.
CPF members aged 16 to 20 are not auto-enrolled and have to apply directly with Great Eastern Life if they want cover early. You can download and return the proposal form, ask a Great Eastern financial representative, or visit the customer service centre. Cover is subject to good health, so you complete a health declaration as part of the application. From age 21, a valid CPF working contribution enrols you automatically.
You get a 30-day renewal notice and a 60-day grace period to pay. If the premium still is not paid, the policy lapses and you lose cover. You can reinstate within 120 days of the renewal date with a reinstatement form, the outstanding premium, and satisfactory health underwriting. Separately, if your cover lapsed on or after 1 April 2021, a later valid CPF working contribution while aged 21 to under 65 can auto-enrol you again.
Yes. From age 18 you can make a revocable DPS nomination so the death benefit goes to the people you choose, and you can change it later. Trust nominations are not allowed for DPS. If you make no nomination and leave no will, the death payout goes to a proper claimant under Section 150 of the Insurance Act 1966, such as a spouse, parent, child, or sibling, which can take longer. Terminal illness and TPD payouts always go to you, so nomination only affects the death benefit.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change — verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.