ST Explains: How will the 2026 CareShield Life changes affect me?
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
There are more than 1.9 million CareShield Life policyholders in Singapore.
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
Follow topic:
SINGAPORE – National long-term care insurance scheme CareShield Life has been reviewed to keep pace with escalating healthcare costs.
Monthly payouts under the scheme, which was introduced in 2020 to provide lifelong coverage for severe disability, will increase by 4 per cent each year, starting from $689 in 2026.
So will premiums for the next five years.
How will the 2026 CareShield Life changes
1. What is CareShield Life?
CareShield Life is Singapore’s mandatory long-term care insurance scheme that provides lifelong monthly payouts for severe disability.
Introduced in 2020, it automatically enrols Singaporeans and permanent residents born in 1980 or later from the age of 30.
Those born in or before 1979 have the option to join CareShield Life. They include people insured under ElderShield, an earlier version of the national insurance scheme against severe disability.
Those born between 1970 and 1979, who were insured under ElderShield 400 and had not developed severe disability, were also automatically enrolled from Dec 1, 2021.
Unlike CareShield Life, which provides lifelong payments, ElderShield claimants receive monthly payouts for a maximum period of five or six years (depending on whether they are on the ElderShield 300 or 400 plan).
The ElderShield payout is fixed at $300 or $400, whereas the CareShield Life payout increases at a pre-determined annual growth rate – up until an individual makes a claim or turns 67.
To claim from CareShield Life, one needs to be assessed to be severely disabled for at least three of the six activities of daily living: washing, toileting, dressing, feeding, transferring and mobility.
2. What are the key changes at a glance?
From 2026, the monthly CareShield Life payout will increase by 4 per cent a year over the next five years. This is double the 2 per cent annual growth rate from 2020 to 2025.
This means that somebody who makes a CareShield Life claim in 2030 will receive $806 a month, higher than the payout of $731 if the annual growth rate were to remain at 2 per cent.
To sustain the higher payouts, CareShield Life premiums will increase too. Premiums will grow at 4 per cent a year, after a one-step rise in premiums in 2026.
Singapore residents will receive financial support – tipped to cost a total of $570 million over the five years – to cushion the increase in premiums.
This comprises transitional support of $440 million to evenly phase in and moderate the premium increases, and more means-tested premium subsidies of more than $130 million for low- to middle-income policyholders.
Those who are unable to afford their CareShield Life premiums after subsidies and have limited family support will be invited to apply for additional premium support, if they are eligible.
These support measures will mean that annual premium increases from 2025 to 2026 will be moderated to about $38 on average, and no more than $75.
Plans are under way to study the feasibility of tele-assessments, and a possible streamlining of the application process by end-2025 so that an applicant who has undergone severe disability assessment will be evaluated for eligibility for other related financial schemes.
Furthermore, from 2026, CareShield Life will no longer accept older individuals born in 1979 or earlier with mild and moderate disabilities. This group of older individuals can still opt to join the scheme in 2025. From 2026, they can enrol in CareShield Life only if they have no pre-existing disabilities.
3. What are the enhanced benefits from CareShield Life?
Benefits and premiums differ depending on socio-economic status, gender and the age when individuals joined CareShield Life.
For instance, a 50-year-old male policyholder who enrolled in CareShield Life in 2021, lives in a four-room Housing Board flat and has a monthly per capita household income of $3,600 can receive:
- transitional support totalling $219 from 2026 to 2029;
- means-tested reduction of 20 per cent from base premiums; and
- $50 in participation incentives annually, for a total of 10 years from 2021. Participation incentives are provided only to those who opted in to CareShield Life before Dec 31, 2024.
In another example, a 73-year-old female policyholder who enrolled in CareShield Life in 2021, lives in a three-room HDB flat and has a monthly per capita household income of $2,600 can receive:
- means-tested reduction of 25 per cent from base premiums; and
- $400 participation incentives annually, for a total of 10 years from 2021 (inclusive of an additional $150 incentive for Merdeka and Pioneer Generation seniors). Participation incentives are provided only to those who opted in to CareShield Life before Dec 31, 2024.
- There is no transitional support as the base premiums would have been reduced from 2026.
4. How can individuals find out if they are insured under CareShield Life or ElderShield?
Log in to the CareShield Life website
5. Will individuals insured under ElderShield be able to register for CareShield Life?
Yes. Individuals may log in to the CPF website
Singapore citizens and permanent residents born between 1970 and 1979, who were covered under the ElderShield 400 scheme and did not develop severe disability, were auto-enrolled in CareShield Life from Dec 1, 2021.
6. Will individuals who had opted out of ElderShield be able to register for CareShield Life?
Yes, those born in 1979 or earlier and who do not have severe disability will be able to apply for CareShield Life through CPF’s website
Some applicants may need to undergo a disability assessment. Individuals will be informed if such an assessment is required.
From 2026, older individuals born in 1979 or earlier and who have mild or moderate disability will no longer be able to enrol in CareShield Life.
