Home insurance in Singapore is not one product. It is four, and people buy the wrong one because the names overlap. HDB fire insurance rebuilds the bare shell your flat was handed over in. Home contents insurance pays for the renovation and everything you carried inside. Full home (or private home) insurance bundles the building shell and contents for owners with no HDB scheme behind them. The Home Protection Scheme is not really home insurance at all, it is life cover that clears your housing loan if you die. This guide sorts out which one you actually need, what each pays a claim for, and the verified prices as of June 2026.
Walk into any conversation about insuring your flat and four different things get mixed up. They sit under different bodies, charge on different scales, and pay out for completely different events. Buy one and assume it covers the others and you find out the gap only at claim time.
Here is the quick map before the detail. Match the product to the loss you are actually worried about, not the word that sounds closest to "home".
| Product | Run by | Pays for | Typical 2026 cost | Who needs it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HDB fire insurance | Etiqa (HDB-appointed) | Rebuilding the bare HDB-built shell after fire | $1.11 to $6.68 for 5 years | Compulsory if you hold an HDB loan |
| Home contents insurance | Private insurers | Renovation, furniture, appliances, belongings, liability | About $100 to $400 a year | Optional, every household |
| Full / private home insurance | Private insurers | Building shell plus contents plus liability | From about $44 to $200+ a year | Condo and landed owners |
| Home Protection Scheme (HPS) | CPF Board | Clears outstanding HDB loan on death, terminal illness or TPD | Premium varies by age and loan | HDB owners paying the loan with CPF OA |
If you have an outstanding HDB mortgage loan, HDB fire insurance is compulsory, per HDB. The contract sits with Etiqa, which HDB appointed as the scheme insurer for 16 August 2024 to 15 August 2029. It is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy and the most misunderstood, because most people think it covers their home. It does not. It covers the structure HDB built and handed to you.
What a payout rebuilds is the internal structure, fixtures and the areas built and provided by HDB. What it ignores is everything you added or brought in: renovation, flooring you laid, the kitchen you fitted, furniture, appliances and personal belongings. Those sit uninsured unless you add a separate home contents policy. If you took a bank loan instead of an HDB loan, the scheme is not automatic, so check your mortgage paperwork.
| Flat type | 5-year premium | Sum insured |
|---|---|---|
| 1-room / Community Care Apartment | $1.11 | $37,900 |
| 2-room / 2-room Flexi / Studio | $1.99 | $57,000 |
| 3-room | $3.27 | $83,300 |
| 4-room / S1 | $4.59 | $117,000 |
| 5-room / S2 / 3-Gen | $5.43 | $144,800 |
| Executive / Multi-Generation | $6.68 | $176,700 |
This is the policy that does what most people assumed fire insurance did. It pays to replace what burns, floods, gets stolen or breaks: the renovation you spent $50,000 on, the sofa, the fridge, the laptop, sometimes jewellery and electronics up to sub-limits. Most plans also bundle personal liability, which steps in if your burst pipe damages the unit below or a guest is injured in your home.
Contents cover is optional for every property type, including HDB. Nobody forces you to hold it, and CPF cannot pay for it. Budget roughly $100 to $400 a year for an HDB flat, depending on the sum insured and add-ons. As a reference point, several insurers price an $80,000 contents sum insured for a 4-room flat at around $165 to $210 a year as of June 2026. Size the sum insured against your renovation cost plus the replacement value of what you own, not a round number that feels safe. Our renovation cost calculator gives you the first half of that figure.
Condo and landed owners do not get the HDB fire scheme. For a strata condo, the management corporation usually insures the common building structure through a master policy, so an owner-occupier often insures contents and renovation plus liability, and checks the MCST cover for the rest. Landed homeowners carry the building themselves, which is why their plans bundle building and contents into one full home policy.
Premiums spread wide because the building and contents sums insured swing a lot. As of June 2026, public-comparison pricing ran from about $44.22 for a FWD plan with $82,000 building and $20,000 contents, to roughly $75.76 for AIG Homes Essential at $100,000 building and $150,000 contents, up to $203.56 for a packaged AIG Homes Advantage plan. Date-stamp any quote you see and pull the current figure from the insurer, because promotions move monthly. If you are still weighing flat versus private at all, our HDB vs condo comparison frames the wider cost gap before insurance even enters the picture.
| Plan | Annual premium | Building sum insured | Contents sum insured | Personal liability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FWD Home Insurance | $44.22 (promo) | $82,000 | $20,000 | $500,000 |
| TIQ Home Insurance | $71.92 | $117,000 | $45,000 | Plan-dependent |
| AIG Homes Essential | $75.76 | $100,000 | $150,000 | $400,000 |
| MSIG Enhanced HomePlus (Standard) | $95.90 | Contents-only | $125,000 | Plan-dependent |
| AIG Homes Advantage Package | $203.56 | $85,000 | $20,000 | Plan-dependent |
HPS gets filed under home insurance because of the name, but it is mortgage-reducing life cover run by the CPF Board. If you die, suffer terminal illness or total permanent disability before the HDB loan is cleared, HPS pays off the outstanding balance so your family keeps the flat. It covers nothing about the building or your belongings.
HPS is compulsory for Singapore Citizens and PRs who use CPF Ordinary Account savings to service an HDB housing loan, and it covers you up to age 65 or until the loan is repaid, whichever comes first, per CPF. The premium scales with your age and outstanding loan, and unlike the other three products you can pay it from your CPF OA. If your priority is keeping the roof regardless of fire or theft, HPS is the product that does it. The trade-off versus private term cover is worth a read in our guide on mortgage insurance options.
Start from the loss you are insuring against, then layer only what is missing. An HDB owner with a loan already holds fire insurance and probably HPS, so the open gap is contents. A private owner has no fire scheme, so the building-plus-contents full policy is the base.
One sanity check before you commit. Wear and tear, gradual leaks, deliberate damage and unoccupied-property clauses are where claims die. If a plan is $30 cheaper but excludes water damage from your own plumbing, it is not cheaper, it is a smaller policy wearing the same name.
Only partly. HDB fire insurance is compulsory if you have an outstanding HDB loan, and HPS is compulsory for citizens and PRs who service that loan with CPF OA savings. Home contents and full home insurance are optional for every property type, though most households still want contents cover.
No. HDB fire insurance only rebuilds the internal structure, fixtures and areas built and provided by HDB. Your renovation, flooring, fitted kitchen, furniture, appliances and personal belongings are not covered. You need a separate home contents policy for those, which costs roughly $100 to $400 a year for an HDB flat as of June 2026.
Home insurance pays to repair or replace your property and belongings after events like fire, theft or burst pipes. HPS is mortgage-reducing life insurance from the CPF Board that clears your outstanding HDB loan if you die, suffer terminal illness or become totally permanently disabled. They protect against entirely different risks, so most HDB owners hold both.
Expect roughly $100 to $400 a year depending on your sum insured and add-ons. As a reference, several insurers price an $80,000 contents sum insured for a 4-room flat at around $165 to $210 a year as of June 2026. Pricing moves with promotions, so verify the current figure with the insurer before buying.
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.