Following the completion of our 8th edition of Dread Disease Survey for Hong Kong, the team has now completed the studies for the Singapore market. Once again, we thank all the participating companies for their continuing effort to participate in the study despite the challenges posed by the COVID‑19 pandemic.

To this end, we are pleased to share some key highlights from the Singapore survey’s results.

1. Growth in Critical Illness business
   For this 8th edition of the Dread Disease Study, we managed to secure several companies in our survey which, based on Gen Re’s calculation, provided a market coverage of around 90%.
   
   From the studies, we can observe that the sales of Critical Illness insurance in Singapore are still strong, with an increase from 1.9 million in‑force policies in 2015 to 2.6 million in‑force policies at the end of 2019. This amounts to approximately 8% growth per year.
2. Demographic split
   Overall, the product split by gender and issued age is similar to that in the previous study. This shows that the target market of Critical Illness insurance had not changed drastically.
   
   Given that lack of change, it is important for us to note that the protection market for Critical Illness continues to present an opportunity for market disruption. Aside from the establishment of more digital sales channels of insurance over the years, it remains to be seen how new insurance models such as embedded insurance/omnichannel models can be used to disrupt Critical Illness insurance.
3. Protection gap
   With the growth in Critical Illness insurance, the level of Critical Illness protection coverage had also increased rapidly. In fact, our study shows that the average Critical Illness protection has increased by around 7% per year from SGD 98,000 to SGD 130,000. This finding is also in line with the findings of the Life Insurance Association (LIA’s) report from its protection gap study which reported a protection level of SGD 128,861 of Critical Illness protection per person in 2017.¹
   
   That said, even with the growth in Critical Illness protection seen over the study period, LIA’s protection gap study still ended up with a protection gap of SGD 538 billion. Given the current inflation climate, it is believed the Critical Illness protection gap has widened even further. Hence, it would be important to revisit the level of Critical Illness protection for the insured periodically.
4. Distribution of claims
   In recent years, Critical Illness products have become more comprehensive by covering not just more major critical illness conditions, but also more minor conditions. The result of such product change can be seen in this survey with three times as many minor claims as the previous survey. Such an increase in minor claims was offset by the decrease in death claims in this survey.
   
   Ultimately, Critical Illness products are meant as a protection for those who survive a critical illness, and our result certainly shows that insureds are benefiting from the expansion of the scope of coverage.
5. Causes of claims for major critical illness conditions
   In terms of the disease coverage of Critical Illness insurance, our study observes that the existing 36 major critical illness conditions from the list of standard definitions by LIA continue to cover most of the claims. Cancer, heart attack/other heart conditions and stroke account for 88% of the claims for men and 91% of the claims for women.
   
   In addition, it is not surprising that cancer contributed to the bulk of the claims, with 45% for men and 80% for women.
6. Cancer sites
   For female cancer sites, there have been no significant changes in the study period. Breast cancer, uterine cancer, and colorectal cancer continue to be the top three cancer sites in both the last survey (2012–2015) and this survey (2015–2019).
   
   For male cancer sites, the rise in prostate cancer is of particular interest in this survey. Colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, and lung cancer have become the top three cancer sites, with prostate cancer rising from the fourth most common cancer site among men to second place in this survey.

More detailed results will be delivered to our participating companies over the next few months with subsequent delivery of the full results that include a market comparison of Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mainland China, and Singapore.

If you have any questions about the research or would like to find out more about how to participate in the future, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Endnote

1. https://www.lia.org.sg/media/1332/protection-gap-study-report-2017.pdf