By MoneyBees
Work out the critical illness lump sum you need from your income, recovery years and uncovered costs, your gap after existing cover, and how CI cover sits beside MediShield Life and CareShield Life.
Start with the income you would lose while you recover: your annual income times the years you expect to be off work. Add costs your hospital plan will not pay, then take off the CI cover and savings you already have. CPF Board suggests at least four times your annual income.
A lump sum when you are diagnosed with a covered illness at the stage the policy defines. You can use it for anything, such as rent, loan repayments or living costs, unlike a hospital plan that pays towards the bill.
MediShield Life helps pay large hospital bills and selected costly outpatient treatments such as dialysis and chemotherapy, sized for B2 and C wards in public hospitals. It helps pay the bill; a CI policy is what pays a lump sum on diagnosis.
LIA sets standard definitions for 37 critical illnesses at the severe stage, Version 2024, used for new products from 1 Oct 2025. Early and intermediate stages are not defined by LIA, so each insurer writes its own definitions.
LIA says major cancer, heart attack, stroke, other heart diseases and kidney failure make up close to 90% of severe stage CI claims.
CareShield Life pays a monthly amount for life if you cannot do 3 of the 6 activities of daily living: S$689 a month for claims made in 2026. It is for severe disability, not a diagnosis, so it does not replace CI cover.
LIA's Protection Gap Study 2022 put it at 74%, or S$579 billion. Average CI cover per policyholder was S$193,300, about 2.1 times annual income.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).