See also

• Allianz annuity as(poor)cousin@CpfLife

— advantage: fineprints are well-documented
CPF Life product feature is probably more stable, and better understood. Fewer hidden surprises.

Same (no such thing in private annuities) policy for everyone. Easy to find answers online.

As a auth UI, Singapass shares this advantage.

CPF Life is designed for the less educated. The CPF board is not out to take advantage of its own citizens.

policy fineprints stay the same for decades. (Some private annuities evolve with market, or go out of market.) As a result, I invested dozens of hours to document CPF fineprints in 30+ bposts.

— advantage: hotline + service centers .. CPF customer service is excellent — onsite, prompt help, similar to a local police or WalMart. The information provides is simpler to understand.

As a auth UI, Singapass shares this advantage.

— advantage: expRatio
CPF is not run for profit. If the commercial insurer charges 3% fee a year or has average 5% surplus return from investment, or pays the salesman a commission,  then with CPF Life, these sums would go back into the pool, enhancing the payouts.

Compare a bookstore run by a church vs a commercial bookstore.

— advantage: non-profit .. The insurer is CPF board which I trust more.

If the economy takes a down turn for CPF members, and the CPF Life becomes insufficient as a retirement plan, then I trust CPF would consider adjustments (bending over backward) to help the members. Retirement is the #1 objective of CPF board of a nanny state. In contrast, Allianz is a commercial operator and not a nanny state.

— advantage: (standard plan) stable payout .. monthly payout amount stays constant in the Standard plan, provided cpf int rate and mortality rate stay constant.  I heard this promise in a Feb 2025 hotline conversation, and I trust this “promise”.

In constrast my private annuities have weaker “promises” on payout rate.

The rest are questionable “advantages”, but often cited as advantages

— higher payout_rate .. becuase

• descending death benefit .. “selling blood to prop up payout_rate”. CpfLife is a “descending annuity”.
• .. I prefer the words “descending/descent” for its neutral connotation
• 10Y accumulation at 4 ppa. Many private annuities have 10Y or 20Y but I bought three annuties with 3Y accumu phase.
• low expRatio

— liquidity (double-edged) .. private annuities have surrender value, an exposure to scams and adult children’s (unwanted) plea for help

As discusssed in lock up100k]cpf, if you don’t need some 100k idle cash for the rest of your life, then why not lock it away in cpfRA permanently to prevent those issues?