As someone in his 40s, I’m no stranger to financial products, but the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement is relatively new to me.
That’s why, I wondered if attending the second edition of the InsureXpo by CIMB, which was focussed on FIRE, would be relevant.
Held last month at Suntec Convention Centre, the insurance-centric event brought together the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board, several major insurance companies in Singapore as well as well-known personalities from across the financial industry for several content-packed presentations.
Here’s what I learnt from spending an entire Saturday listening to the presentations and discussions on stage, speaking to the folks and playing games at various booths, and mingling with a like-minded crowd.
#1 Time Horizon Is Important
Right from his opening remarks, Mr Victor Lee, CEO of CIMB Singapore reiterated a hard truth, “good financial planning begins early”. This was echoed by guest-of-honour Minister of State Alvin Tan in his keynote address and throughout the day by other speakers.
The good news is that, despite being in my 40s, the consensus seemed to be that it is never too late, but some compromises need to be made. As Mr Raymond Tan, Head of Wealth Management and Preferred Banking, CIMB Singapore, shared during his session, “There is no magic number,” when it comes to retirement age or retirement savings. “It’s all about where you find purpose and meaning.”
Realistically, though, I will likely have to work slightly harder than someone beginning their FIRE journey in their 20s or 30s.
#2 Our Perspectives Of Financial Independence Change With Age
I sat through another interesting session by Mr Raymond Tan, sharing the insights of the “Attitudes and Beliefs towards Financial Independence Report 2025” conducted by CIMB Singapore and the Nanyang Centre for Marketing and Technology.
In the study, they found that 2 out of 3 Singapore residents (aged 26 to 60 years old) aspire to achieve financial independence. While financial independence was defined as being “free from financial worries”, Mr Tan acknowledge that this was still a personal decision and depended on one’s own lifestyle preferences.
An interesting takeaway from the study was how different age groups approached the topic. For example, slightly more than half of respondents regardless of age agreed that having more than $1 million was needed to achieve financial independence, with 53% of respondents aged 40 to 50 agreeing on that number.
Source: CIMB Singapore
However, younger respondents appeared more confident about achieving financial independence, with 60% of respondents under 30 believing this was possible before they turn 40. For those aged 40 to 50 years old, 45% of respondents believed they could achieve it before turning 60.
Source: CIMB Singapore
As Mr Raymond Tan said, “the younger you are, the earlier you want to achieve financial independence. “Start early and leverage on the power of compounding interest,” he advised, and I think this financial wisdom is regardless of age.
Read Also: 5 Insurance Tips From InsureXpo by CIMB For Young Graduates Entering The Workforce
#3 An Aging Population Will Lead To Health Insurance Prices Increasing
At the “Shaping the Future of Insurance” panel, Mr Kelvin Kua, Chief Partnership Distribution Officer, AIA Singapore raised the issue of the rising cost of medical treatments, with the average cost of medical care rising by more than 10% in 2024.
Ms Helen Shen, Group Head of Products, Singlife, identified the 3 main reasons behind the cost of healthcare going up: an aging population, R&D costs for new healthcare technology and changing consumption patterns, such as early detection and diagnosis of critical illnesses becoming more common.
Mr Joseph Lim, Head of Products and Pricing, FWD Singapore agreed that health insurance costs, especially when it comes to critical illnesses, will rise because of the high utilisation.
Financial resilience would therefore be extremely important as we grow older, and all four panelists on stage, which included Mr. Steven Teo, Chief Partnership Distribution Officer, Income Insurance, agreed that insurers were moving towards offering a more personalised and holistic suite of products.
As Ms Helen Shen summed up, we need to think of long-term costs more holistically as lifetime premiums to better understand what we can afford, not just now but into retirement.
As someone in his 40s, this panel was extremely eye-opening for me and made me realise that being free from financial worries would include ensuring that I adjust my insurance coverage accordingly to ensure I could afford the premiums both now and in the future.
#4 Take Advantage Of CPF’s New Tools Like The Health Insurance Planner To Give Yourself Perspective
The topic of lifetime premiums was also touched on during a panel with Mr Daniel Teo, Director, Policy, CPF Board and Mr Timothy Ho, Managing Editor and Co-Founder, DollarsAndSense.
Just a few days before the event, CPF launched a new Health Insurance Planner, which was something the two panellists spoke a little about when discussing how the CPF Board had evolved over the years.
Some of the improvements they spoke about included the expansion of coverage for MediShield Life for new treatments, as well as the higher claim limits across the board. They also mentioned the introduction of the CPF LIFE Escalating Plan and how the Enhanced Retirement Sum (ERS) is now 4 times the Basic Retirement Sum (BRS), instead of 3 times.
As Mr Timothy Ho pointed out, CPF provides a form of basic financial stability against inflation, ensuring that you only turn to financial markets, which are volatile, if you are willing to take risks to achieve better returns.
What the panel helped me to understand was that there are many ways to utilise my CPF savings as long as I took the time to understand all that CPF offers. Fortunately, CPF has become much better at communicating its policy changes, as evidenced by the response to the increase in ERS amount.
Read Also: 8 Things To Know About The CPF Enhanced Retirement Sum (ERS)
#5 There’s More To FIRE Than Just “Independence”
In my opinion, no FIRE session is complete without the input from one of the movement’s early proponents, Mr He Ruiming of The Woke Salaryman, who achieved FIRE in his 30s. His panel with his co-founder Mr Goh Wei Choon was a good opportunity to put all that I’d learnt through the day into some much-needed perspective.
Wei Choon pointed out that while FIRE has been around for over a decade now, there are many more nuanced perspectives to the movement today. The definition of financial independence, for example, could mean many things, including financial stability, and this definition is allowed to change throughout your life. As Wei Choon puts it, “financial independence is a journey, not a single achievement”.
During the Question and Answer portion of the panel, Ruiming was asked about his definition of retirement. His technical answer was when “dividends exceed expenses”, or in other words, you can choose to increase your dividends, or reduce your expenses, or both.
In a later panel, Mr Loo Cheng Chuan, Founder of the 1M65 movement also echoed this sentiment when he said it was important to “first ensure financial security, then focus on growth”.
These perspectives were the perfect bookend for the day, as it echoed what I’d heard right at the start of InsureXpo by CIMB 2025 – when CIMB Singapore’s Mr. Raymond Tan said that financial independence is a personal decision.
As a newcomer to FIRE in my 40s, it wasn’t too late to start. I just need to be more realistic about what I could achieve. I think, first and foremost, I’d want to review my insurance policies with my financial advisor and get a better perspective of my lifetime premiums to ensure financial stability and security.
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