AIA Singapore's Enhanced Retirement Saver (III) To Help Address Mounting Concerns Around Retirement

Singapore, 24 May 2018 – AIA Singapore today launched the enhanced AIA Retirement Saver (III) to help boost retirement adequacy among Singaporeans as life expectancies¹ and the incidence of critical illnesses continue to increase.

The policy now offers significantly higher maturity yield and includes:

• Lowered premiums by up to 15%, to reduce the cost barriers to retirement planning, especially as more than half indicated current financial obligations as their top barrier to retirement².

• Increased Monthly Dividend by up to 142% to provide a higher stream of regular payouts for customers to better plan their retirement funds for greater peace of mind and security.

• According to Singstats’s record in 2016, the average life expectancy for male is 80.6 years and female is 85.1 years respectively³. Hence, with longer life expectancies, we enhanced the AIA Retirement Saver (III) to provide our customers with an option to delay Retirement Age till age 70, which results in a higher maturity yield due to the longer accumulation period.

• The minimum Single Premium required for Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) plan has been reduced to S$15,000 so that we are able to help a wider group of customers with both their tax and retirement planning needs.

• Critical Protector Waiver of Premium, which waives future premiums upon diagnosis of any of the covered Critical Illnesses (CIs). This is particularly important today, given the increasing incidence of chronic illnesses in Singapore.

The enhancement of AIA Singapore’s popular AIA Retirement Saver plan addresses customers’ mounting concerns around retirement, providing them with the solution to start taking charge of their savings.

Key features of AIA Retirement Saver (III) offer enhanced returns, certainty, greater choice and guaranteed acceptance: 

Over the last decade, AIA Singapore has consistently delivered one of the strongest returns, outperforming industry averages. 

In April 2018, AIA Singapore also announced S$494 million in par fund bonuses projected for the year⁴, with more than 70,000 policies benefiting from a bonus scale increase, some of which with bonus rates that are higher than illustrated at point of sale.

Ms Ho Lee Yen, Chief Customer and Marketing Officer of AIA Singapore, said, “AIA Retirement Saver (III) was designed to help Singaporeans grow and protect their retirement funds so they can enjoy the lifestyle they desire in their golden years with certainty.

“Healthcare and medical related expenses are an increasing concern, with people expecting to spend almost 20% of their retirement expenditure on this area. Even among those who have started retirement planning, more than 1 in 3 still feel unprepared.

“With this plan, we want to give our customers the confidence to take charge and plan for their retirement, which is easier and more achievable when they start at an early age. As Singapore tackles the challenges that accompany our demographic changes, we will continually enhance our products and services to meet our customers’ unmet protection needs, empowering them to live healthier, longer and better lives.”

These customer insights were obtained via AIA360, an online platform for our customers to provide feedback on their financial planning needs. This helps to support AIA Singapore in our continual efforts to develop and enhance our comprehensive suite of innovative products and services to address what our customers really want.

AIA Retirement Saver (III) was launched amid concerns around being able to cope with healthcare and medical related costs in retirement given Singapore’s demographic changes. Yet 4 in 5 would still like to retire before they are 65 years old and the median desired monthly retirement income is S$2,500 – a difficult ask, given average monthly savings of approximately S$1,500⁵. 

This AIA360 retirement survey was completed by 421 respondents aged 21 to 60.