Great Eastern’s endowment plans range from GREAT SP, a 24-month single-premium plan guaranteeing 0.70% p.a., to GREAT Wealth Multiplier 3, a participating plan illustrated to multiply your premiums several times over decades. As Singapore’s oldest insurer (est. 1908) and an OCBC subsidiary, Great Eastern offers both capital-guaranteed and participating options — the right pick depends on your time horizon and risk appetite.

Not financial advice. All figures are for educational reference only. Data verified as at 15 July 2026, based on Great Eastern’s officially published product pages.

What Is Great Eastern?

Great Eastern is Singapore’s oldest life insurer. It was founded in 1908, making it 118 years old in 2026. It’s also the largest life insurer in Singapore and Malaysia combined, with more than 15.5 million policyholders and over S$117 billion in assets, according to Great Eastern’s own company profile.

Great Eastern is majority-owned by OCBC Bank. OCBC raised its stake to 93.72% in October 2024 after a privatisation bid for the insurer. That gives Great Eastern deep banking-group backing on top of its own balance sheet — a meaningful trust signal if you’re comparing insurers.

You can buy Great Eastern’s plans through its tied agency force, bancassurance partners (including OCBC branches), Great Eastern Financial Advisers (GEFA), or directly online for select products like GREAT SP.

An endowment plan — sometimes called endowment insurance — is a savings-cum-protection policy. You pay a premium, either once (single premium) or over several years (regular premium), and the insurer returns it with interest at a set maturity date. Most plans also cover you for death and total and permanent disability (TPD) along the way.

Endowment plans come in two flavours. Non-participating plans, like GREAT SP, pay a fixed and guaranteed return you can calculate on day one. Participating plans, like GREAT Wealth Multiplier 3, invest your premiums in the insurer’s participating fund (also called a “par fund”) and pay a mix of guaranteed and non-guaranteed bonuses — so your final payout depends partly on how well that fund performs.

Great Eastern’s Endowment Plan Lineup

Great Eastern sells five endowment-type plans under its Wealth Accumulation range. Here’s how they stack up structurally. Only GREAT SP and GREAT Wealth Multiplier 3 have specific guaranteed-return or multiplier figures published on Great Eastern’s site as at this writing — for the others, ask a Great Eastern Financial Representative for a current benefit illustration.

Source: Great Eastern product pages (greateasternlife.com), as at 15 July 2026.

GREAT SP: Guaranteed 0.70% Over 24 Months

GREAT SP is Great Eastern’s flagship short-term plan. You pay a single premium of at least S$10,000 (cash or Supplementary Retirement Scheme funds), and the plan matures in just 24 months. There’s no medical assessment, so approval is quick.

The guaranteed survival benefit — equivalent to 0.70% of your premium as at 1 December 2025 — is paid out twice: at the end of the 12th policy month and again at the 24th. At maturity, you also get back 100% of your original premium. Great Eastern reserves the right to change this rate for new applications at any time, so always confirm the rate quoted on your actual application date.

Great Eastern’s own GREAT SP product page illustrates how the payout works using a hypothetical 3.00% p.a. rate, not the current rate. If you put in S$100,000 and the applicable rate were 3.00% p.a., you’d receive S$3,000 at month 12, another S$3,000 at month 24, plus your S$100,000 back at maturity — S$106,000 in total. This is Great Eastern’s own illustrative example, not today’s actual rate.

Source: Great Eastern GREAT SP product page, illustrative example (as at 1 Dec 2025) — not the current rate. The actual current guaranteed rate is 0.70% p.a.

Here’s the part worth being honest about: at 0.70% p.a., GREAT SP’s current guaranteed rate sits well below the CPF Ordinary Account’s 2.50% p.a. floor rate and the Singapore T-bill’s recent 1.50% p.a. (6-month auction, 7 July 2026). If pure yield on a safe, short-term parking spot is your only goal, those two options currently pay more.

Where GREAT SP can still make sense: you get built-in death and TPD cover (105% of your premium, or the surrender value, whichever is higher) bundled with the savings — something a T-bill or CPF OA balance doesn’t offer. It also has no medical assessment and a short 24-month lock-up, which suits money you’ll need back in about two years but still want a small guarantee and light insurance on.

The maximum entry age is 80 (age next birthday), and you have 7 calendar days from your application date to pay in full for the rate to lock in.

GREAT Wealth Multiplier 3: The Long Game

GREAT Wealth Multiplier 3 is built for decades, not months. It’s a participating endowment plan — meaning your premiums go into Great Eastern’s participating fund, and you receive a mix of guaranteed benefits plus non-guaranteed bonuses (reversionary and terminal bonuses) depending on how that fund performs.

You can pay premiums over 5, 10 or 15 years, or as a single lump sum. The plan matures on the policy anniversary when the life assured turns 120 (age next birthday) — so in practice, most people surrender or use the accumulated value long before actual maturity, rather than holding it for a full century.

Great Eastern’s GREAT Wealth Multiplier 3 product page illustrates the plan multiplying your total premiums by up to 8X or more by policy year 60, assuming an Illustrated Investment Rate of Return (IIRR) of 4.25% p.a. — this is simply the assumed future performance of the participating fund used for illustration, not a promised return. At a more conservative 3.00% p.a. IIRR assumption, the multiple works out to about 4.4X by year 60.

Capital is guaranteed too, but only from a certain point onward, provided you don’t alter the policy. For a single premium policy, that’s from the end of policy year 10. For 5-year and 10-year premium terms, it’s from the end of year 15. For a 15-year premium term, it’s from the end of year 20. Surrender before that point, and you could get back less than you paid in.

One feature worth knowing about: you can name your spouse or child as a secondary life assured, so the policy’s value keeps growing even after you pass on — useful if you’re using this as a multi-generational wealth transfer tool rather than a personal retirement fund.

A caution on the figures above: Great Eastern’s published GREAT Wealth Multiplier 3 illustrations on its website are dated 26 October 2023. Bonus rates and IIRR assumptions can be revised over time, so ask for an up-to-date benefit illustration before committing.

Great Eastern vs Other Singapore Insurers

Great Eastern isn’t the only insurer offering endowment plans in Singapore. Here’s how its two flagship plans compare structurally against other insurer-specific plans we’ve reviewed on The Kopi Notes. For exact current rates on each, read the linked deep-dives — insurers change rates often, and repeating numbers here would go stale fast.

Source: thekopinotes.com internal research, as at 15 July 2026. Always compare live quotes — short-term endowment rates are typically repriced every few months.

For the full picture of how endowment plans work as a category, including how they stack up against CPF, Singapore Savings Bonds and fixed deposits, see our complete endowment plan guide.

Who Should Buy Which Plan?

Neither plan is automatically “better” — it depends on what you need the money to do.

If you’re unsure how much life coverage you actually need on top of any endowment plan, our Insurance Gap Calculator can help you work out the shortfall before you add a savings plan on top.

How to Buy a Great Eastern Endowment Plan

1. Decide what you need the money to do. A short 2-year guarantee (GREAT SP) and a multi-decade wealth plan (GREAT Wealth Multiplier 3) solve different problems.
2. Get a current benefit illustration. Rates and bonus assumptions change — request one from a Great Eastern Financial Representative, via GEFA, or through the online quote tool before you commit to any figure you’ve read online.
3. Choose your funding source. Both flagship plans accept cash or Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) funds; check how using SRS affects your annual contribution cap and eventual withdrawal tax treatment.
4. Apply. GREAT SP can be bought online with no medical assessment. GREAT Wealth Multiplier 3 typically goes through an adviser given its longer-term, more complex structure.
5. Pay within the stipulated window. For GREAT SP, you have 7 calendar days from your application date to pay in full — otherwise your application may be invalidated and you’d need to reapply at the then-prevailing rate.
6. Don’t put your entire emergency fund or SRS balance into one plan. Spread short-term cash across a few instruments (T-bills, fixed deposits, GREAT SP) so you’re not overly reliant on any single guarantee.

Risks and Limitations

Every endowment plan involves trade-offs. Here’s what to weigh before you commit.

Surrender value risk. If you surrender either plan early — especially within the first few years — you may get back less than you paid in. This is standard across the industry, not unique to Great Eastern.

Non-guaranteed bonus risk. For GREAT Wealth Multiplier 3, only part of your eventual payout is guaranteed. The rest depends on reversionary and terminal bonuses, which move with the participating fund’s actual performance and can be lower than illustrated.

Opportunity cost. At today’s 0.70% p.a., GREAT SP’s guaranteed return is lower than the CPF Ordinary Account and recent Singapore T-bill yields. You’re paying for the insurance and simplicity, not chasing the highest yield.

Inflation risk on long horizons. A multi-decade plan like GREAT Wealth Multiplier 3 needs to outpace inflation, not just grow in nominal dollars, to genuinely build wealth.

Insurer concentration. Life policies in Singapore are covered under the Policy Owners’ Protection Scheme administered by the Singapore Deposit Insurance Corporation (SDIC), which adds a layer of protection — but you should still avoid concentrating all your long-term savings with a single insurer or product.

Frequently Asked Questions