Mortgage loan insurance in Singapore pays off your home loan if you die, are diagnosed with a terminal illness, or become totally and permanently disabled, so your family keeps the roof and not the debt. If you bought an HDB flat with a loan and use your CPF Ordinary Account to pay it, you are almost certainly already covered by the Home Protection Scheme (HPS) and paying for it from your OA without noticing. Private property owners get nothing automatic and have to choose between mortgage reducing term assurance (MRTA) and level term cover. This guide breaks down what each one pays out, the real 2026 numbers, when you can legally skip HPS, and where buying a plain term policy beats a mortgage-linked one.
Mortgage loan insurance is a death-and-disability policy whose payout is sized to clear your outstanding housing loan. It is not fire insurance, and it is not home contents insurance. Those cover the building structure and your belongings. Mortgage loan insurance covers the borrower, so a bank or HDB never has to force a sale because the person paying the loan is gone.
There are three products in this category in Singapore, and people routinely confuse them. The CPF Board's Home Protection Scheme is the public one for HDB flats. The other two are private insurer products: mortgage reducing term assurance, where the cover shrinks alongside your loan, and level term insurance, where the cover stays flat for the whole term. Each triggers a payout on death, terminal illness or total and permanent disability, but the size and destination of that payout differ.
Worth saying upfront: HDB fire insurance is separate and mandatory if you took an HDB loan. It only reinstates the original fittings the flat came with, not your renovation or furniture. Read our term life guide if you want the broader picture of how income protection sits around all of this.
The fastest way to see the trade-off is side by side. The cover amount is the headline difference: HPS and MRTA both fall as you pay down the loan, while level term holds steady, which is why level term costs more but can leave money over for your family.
| Feature | HPS (Home Protection Scheme) | MRTA (Mortgage Reducing Term) | Level Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run by | CPF Board | Private insurers | Private insurers |
| Eligible property | HDB flats only | HDB or private | HDB or private |
| Cover over time | Falls with the loan | Falls with the loan | Stays level |
| Triggers | Death, terminal illness, TPD | Death, TPD, terminal illness | Death, TPD (and CI if added) |
| Payout goes to | HDB or mortgagee directly | Lender first, surplus to family | Your beneficiaries |
| Typical cost | Lowest | Low | Higher |
| Can add critical illness | No | Usually no | Often yes |
HPS is mortgage-reducing cover that protects your family from losing an HDB flat if you die, are certified terminally ill, or suffer total permanent disability before the loan is cleared. The payout goes straight to HDB or your bank to settle the outstanding loan; nothing is paid to you in cash.
If you own an HDB flat and pay your monthly instalment using CPF savings, you are signed up automatically and the premium is deducted once a year from your Ordinary Account before your mortgage instalment comes out. You need to keep enough in your OA on the policy anniversary month, and a co-owner can authorise their OA to cover any shortfall. Cover runs until you turn 65 or the loan is paid up, whichever comes first.
HPS charges a level premium, meaning the same amount every year, and it is one of the cheapest covers on the market because CPF runs it at cost. As an illustration, CPF figures put a 30-year-old female taking $300,000 of HDB concessionary loan cover over a 25-year tenure at around $180 a year, and you only pay premiums for about 90% of the cover period rather than the full term. The exact figure depends on your age, gender, loan size, tenure and the share of the loan you insure, so run your own numbers on the official HPS Premium Calculator before assuming.
For an HDB loan you apply at the same time as your CPF withdrawal application. For a bank loan on an HDB flat you submit the HPS application online. Co-owners decide what share of the loan each person insures, up to 100% per owner, so a couple can split it 50/50 or weight it toward the higher earner.
HPS is compulsory by default for CPF-paying HDB owners, but you can apply for an exemption if you already hold an equivalent private policy. CPF accepts whole life, term life, endowments, life riders, and MRTA or decreasing term riders, as long as the policy covers your outstanding loan for the full loan term or until age 65, whichever is earlier.
Timing matters for your wallet. If your exemption is approved within one month of HPS being issued, you get a full premium refund; after that the refund is pro-rated. So if you intend to use a private plan instead, line it up before or right after your flat purchase, not a year later.
When is exempting yourself worth it? Mainly if a single term policy can do two jobs at once, covering both the mortgage and your wider income for your dependants. Paying separately for HPS and a thin term plan can cost more than one well-sized term policy. Compare the structures in our term vs whole life breakdown before you decide, and remember that an exempting policy must keep pace with the loan.
Buy a condo or landed home and there is no automatic scheme. The bank will usually want to see that the loan is protected, and you choose between MRTA and level term.
MRTA mirrors HPS in shape: the sum assured decreases each year to track your falling loan balance, so the premium is low. Some are sold as single-premium plans you pay once upfront, others over a fixed period. Online decreasing-term products from the banks let you match the cover to your loan and answer a short health questionnaire instead of a full medical, with terminal illness and TPD built in but no option to bolt on critical illness.
Level term keeps the payout constant for the whole term. It costs more, but if you pass away early, the policy clears the loan and your family keeps the difference. It is also portable in a useful way: it is tied to you, not the property, so selling or refinancing your home does not reset your cover or trigger fresh underwriting. Many advisers argue a level term plan sized to your loan plus a few years of income is the cleaner buy for most families, which is the same logic behind plain term insurance.
Mortgage cover premiums move with loan size, tenure, your age, health and smoker status, so treat any single figure as a starting point. As a rough guide circulating in the market in 2026, monthly mortgage protection premiums for typical $500,000 to $1,000,000 loans land in the low tens to low hundreds of dollars a month, and a 40-year-old insuring a roughly $1.2 million private loan might see MRTA premiums from around $1,000 a year. Always confirm with an actual quote before relying on a number.
To size cover, start from your outstanding loan, then think about whether you also want to replace income. A common rule of thumb is total life cover of nine to ten times annual income, with the mortgage being one chunk of that. If you are buying a flat, plug your loan into our mortgage calculator to see the outstanding balance over time, and use the HDB loan calculator to confirm the tenure your premium is priced against.
One overlooked point: CPF's Home Protection Scheme and the Dependants' Protection Scheme are two different CPF covers. HPS clears your HDB loan; DPS pays your family a cash sum on death or disability. Neither is a substitute for the other, and neither alone is usually enough.
For HDB flats bought with a loan and repaid using CPF, the Home Protection Scheme is compulsory unless you obtain an exemption with an equivalent private policy. For private property bank loans there is no legal requirement, though lenders strongly encourage cover.
HPS pays the outstanding loan directly to HDB or your mortgagee, not to your family in cash. Its only job is to clear the housing debt so your relatives keep the flat. If you want your family to also receive a cash payout, you need a separate term or whole life policy on top.
MRTA cover shrinks each year to track your falling loan balance, which keeps premiums low but leaves nothing extra. Level term keeps the cover constant for the whole term, costs more, and pays out the full sum even when your loan is nearly cleared, so your family keeps the surplus.
Yes. You can apply to CPF for an exemption if you hold an equivalent policy, such as whole life, term life, or a decreasing term rider, that covers the outstanding loan for the full loan term or until age 65. Apply within one month of HPS being issued for a full premium refund.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change — verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.