SINGAPORE - About 760,000 Central Provident Fund (CPF) members will get premium rebates worth $640 million from the Home Protection Scheme, the CPF Board said on Friday (Jan 10).

This comes after the scheme's investment returns did better than expected. The scheme also experienced lower than projected claims.

The CPF Board said that about half of the CPF members can expect to receive $500 or more, with the rebates to be credited into eligible members' CPF Ordinary Account from mid-January.

Eligible members will be notified of their rebate amount either via SMS, e-mail or a hard-copy letter from mid-January. The rebate amount will also be reflected under the transaction history statement when members log-in at the CPF website using their SingPass.

The last exercise carried out was in November 2015.

The Home Protection Scheme is an insurance scheme that protects CPF members and their families from losing their homes, in the event of death or permanent incapacity of the insured member before the housing loans for Housing Board flats are paid up.

CPF members must be insured under the scheme if they use their CPF savings to pay for the monthly housing loan instalments of their HDB flats.