Singaporeans are living longer, one of our nation’s greatest achievements. But it raises an increasingly urgent question: will our health and financial resources last as long as we do? There are of course other important factors like social and familial connections for meaningful life span but this article will focus on health and finances.
The Straits Times recently highlighted the risk of Singaporeans outliving their savings if they plan only to the average life expectancy of 83.9 years. Yet an average is not an expiry date. Someone who prepares to live to 84 but reaches 95 must finance another decade of daily expenses, inflation and healthcare needs.
The usual exhortations in the face of ‘longevity risk’ are to save more, spend less or work longer. All remain important. But they overlook a larger issue: we continue to treat financial planning and healthy ageing as separate conversations. They are not.
Poor health can shorten one’s working life, reduce income and accelerate the drawdown of savings. A serious illness may also bring caregiving expenses, home modifications and prolonged time away from work even if medical bills are partly insured.
The relationship runs in the other direction too. Financial insecurity may cause people to postpone preventive care, compromise nutrition or remain in unsuitable work.
Health affects wealth, and wealth affects health.
Longevity risk is therefore not simply the danger of outliving our savings. It is the danger of living longer without sufficient health, income or freedom to make meaningful choices. This requires a shift from pursuing a fixed retirement number to developing a living longevity plan built around three actions.
First, diagnose early. Understand financial vulnerabilities, income resilience, liquidity, insurance and retirement adequacy alongside health risks, particularly modifiable risk factors for poor health.
Second, personalise the response. Two people of the same age and income may have very different health conditions, family responsibilities and aspirations. Population averages cannot substitute for individual context. Today we appreciate that much of future health risks can be mitigated through sensible lifestyle interventions. This allows bending of the disease trajectory and postponement by years onset of disease or disability.
Depending on personal motivation and ability, making significant changes in spending and/ or health behaviours can be very possible or wholly unrealistic. We need to know and prepare upfront.
Third, review and adapt. “Life happens” as the saying goes. A diagnosis, job transition, caregiving responsibility or housing decision should trigger a reassessment of both health and financial plans.
Singapore already has strong financial and health foundations, albeit silo-ed, through CPF LIFE, MediShield Life and Healthier SG. The next opportunity is to connect them more clearly around the individual. Here financial advisors can step up in the health domain. Just as cabin crew and lifeguards are mandated to be trained in first aid, we wonder aloud whether financial planners and advisors should likewise be formally trained in health. Similarly financial counselling for hospital admissions and medical procedures is already standard in Singapore- could we extend this beyond singular care episodes and adopt a life course approach? Whether the front door is a health issue or retirement planning, it should become the norm that advisors whether health or financial focused, upskill and cross train, or partner to provide the best holistic advice for their clients and patients.
We need society to re-norm and make this coupling routine. Universities, employers and community organisations should treat financial resilience and healthspan as linked life capabilities. Digital diagnostic tools can be useful here. Instead of narrowly focused on either one domain, support personalised and adaptive planning across both health and wealth.
A longer life should bring more years of contribution, relationships and purpose, not more years of financial anxiety or avoidable ill health.
The real question is no longer whether we can live longer. It is whether we can turn those additional years into better ones.
Stan Sia is a Distinguished Senior Fellow (SCALE), NUS and an Independent Board Director
Jeremy Lim is a public health specialist and author of Myth Or Magic — The Singapore Healthcare System
