The millennials in Singapore are recently identified as the country’s new sandwich generation, as reported in Etiqa Insurance Singapore’s “2021 Protection Survey Report”. In it, it has also been noted that the youngest of the millennials are now the fresh faces of the workforce.

The same Millenials are also providing for their ageing parents financially (48%) and funding their own retirement (60%). Both worries could be linked to the rising costs of living and life expectancy here.

In just a decade from 2010 to 2020, local life expectancy increased from 81.54 to 83.90 years. As this figure rises, it also lengthens the time millennials will need to support their parents and eventually themselves when in old age.

As millennials juggle responsibilities to younger children and ageing parents, the insurer’s challenge lies in providing competitive life insurance and critical illness coverage tailored to millennials’ emergent needs.

It is especially notable how technology has a huge influence on the way Millennials invest. Whether they are making personal decisions or getting wealth planning help from an advisor, technology plays a main part in both.

Individualised wealth planning will become necessary as Millennials have more wealth to manage, but at the end of the day, they will always access the Internet first and then verify information with an advisor after. That is how much trust this group has in getting prior information on the Internet.

Millennials are also more likely than their parents to focus on responsible investing that may be both financially worthwhile and have an impact on their social interests. This includes saving the environment or giving a hand to developing third-world countries.

Healthcare costs

With regard to caring for ageing parents, four in five worried about affording their healthcare expenses (82%), and three in five worried about caregiving costs (60%). Few older parents may recognise the risk of outliving their savings or be willing to augment protection in old age due to high costs. Millennials can nonetheless ensure that their parents will have the funds they need, mishap or otherwise, by purchasing sufficient life insurance coverage for themselves.

Meanwhile, the annual medical inflation rate of 10% provides little comfort to those already struggling to manage their finances. Accordingly, one in two millennials considers their own healthcare expenses (54%) a major source of financial worry, with almost as many concerned about losing their ability to work due to critical illness (45%) and subsequently losing their income.

Life insurance

Three in four millennials hold life insurance policies purchased by their parents when they were young, or purchased during adulthood. For those who reported not having life insurance, the most common reasons were that they could not afford the additional expense (36%) and that life insurance is too expensive (31%).

These responses show that most Millenials without life insurance believe the coverage is too expensive or that they are unable to afford them yet.

Financial institutions must begin by recognising each generation’s unique and diverse needs and structure financial planning solutions to meet them.

Each generation impacts the world and evolves the way it thinks about investments. Just as their Baby Boomer parents shaped the world they inherited, Millennials will continue to shape the future of the financial world.

As perception changes with every generation, financial firms must also change up their vantage points and adapt to the newly changed needs.