Should you sacrifice some CPF Life income in favour of ILPs? Tread carefully

[SINGAPORE] AFTER covering personal finance for The Business Times for many years, I like to think that mis-selling of investment and insurance products would be few and far between.

But it seems this may not be so. In the Money Wisdom column in BT on May 22, Providend chief executive Christopher Tan recounted a pitch by a financial adviser (FA) representative to someone he knew, that she should fulfil only the Basic Retirement Sum (BRS) in her Central Provident Fund (CPF) account. The balance that would have gone to fulfil the Full Retirement Sum (FRS) was to be invested in an investment-linked policy (ILP).

This would result in a relatively lower CPF Life income payout which would then be supplemented by a supposedly higher income from the ILP.