In Singapore, Toa Payoh Industrial Park sits alongside the nation's busy Central Expressway. Its cracked driveways and terraced garages mainly house businesses like mechanics and paint shops. But down one avenue is a row of workshops that service the dead; hearses are filled with flowers while caskets lie in state ready for their final journey.
Life-insurance companies typically offer customers a lump sum to relinquish their policy once they pass a certain age. Insurers save money because the policy never has to be paid out, while clients can spend the cash they would have otherwise paid on premiums before they die. Singapore-based multifamily office Kamet Capital Partners Pte committed US$100 million last year to a European manager of US life settlements. Chief executive officer Kerry Goh said his clients, who largely hail from mainland China, were initially hesitant but quickly warmed to the idea when shown the returns history.
At 86, Tsao Ng Yu Shun, an entrepreneur in her own right, established the Tsao Foundation to offer services for the elderly. Since 1993, it's expanded to include a community center in central Singapore, aged-care training and home visit services. Ms Tsao passed away in 2001 and the foundation is now led by her granddaughter Mary Ann.
"People give all sorts of weird reasons, like that ghosts would come into their house," the foundation's clinical affairs chief Ng Wai Chong said of one residential campaign against a nursing home."Socially there's a lot of stigma around hospices and funeral parlours because people think it affects property prices."The result has been slow growth in aged-care facilities. Singapore had 15,205 nursing-home beds at the end of 2018, Ministry of Health data shows.