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 October 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 $36 to $400 a year | Optional, every household |
| Full / private home insurance | Private insurers | Building shell plus contents plus liability | From about $204 to $400+ 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 |
Update, 13 October 2026: we have lowered the bottom of our price range from $100 to about $36 a year, because Income's flexible plan starts at $35.97 and AIG's Homes Essential costs $75.76. 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 $36 to $400 a year for an HDB flat, depending on the sum insured and add-ons. Income's flexible plan starts at $35.97 a year, AIG charges a fixed $75.76 for Homes Essential, and MSIG's Enhanced HomePlus Superior plan, with $80,000 of contents and $115,000 of renovation cover, costs $179.85 a year, all as of October 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.
Update, 13 October 2026: MSIG now lists its Enhanced HomePlus Standard plan at $120.99 a year, not the $95.90 we showed in June, and we have taken out FWD's $44.22 and Tiq's $71.92 because neither insurer publishes a price outside its quote form, so the cheapest full home package we can show is AIG's at $203.56. 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 October 2026, AIG lists Homes Essential at $75.76 a year for $150,000 of contents and renovation cover plus a complimentary $100,000 of building cover, but it is built to sit on top of HDB fire or MCST insurance, not to replace a landed home's building policy. AIG's packaged Homes Advantage plans cost $203.56 to $401.94 a year. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AIG Homes Essential (tops up HDB fire or MCST cover) | $75.76 | $100,000 (complimentary) | $150,000 | $400,000 |
| MSIG Enhanced HomePlus (Standard) | $120.99 | Contents-only | $125,000 | $1,000,000 |
| AIG Homes Advantage Package (Classic) | $203.56 | $85,000 | $20,000 | $1,000,000 |
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 loan, up to the sum insured and in line with your share of cover, so a 50% share clears half. It covers nothing about the building or your belongings.
HPS is compulsory for Singapore Citizens and PRs who use CPF Ordinary Account savings to pay the monthly instalments on an HDB flat, whether the loan is from HDB or a bank, 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. It pays nothing after a fire or theft. 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 pay an HDB flat's instalments with CPF OA savings, whoever the lender is. Home contents insurance is optional for every property type, and condo or landed owners with a bank loan must hold the fire insurance their bank asks for.
Update, 13 October 2026: we have lowered the bottom of this price range from $100 to about $36 a year, in line with insurers' published prices. 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 $36 to $400 a year for an HDB flat as of October 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.
Update, 13 October 2026: we have lowered the bottom of this price range from $100 to about $36 a year, in line with insurers' published prices. Expect roughly $36 to $400 a year depending on your sum insured and add-ons. As a reference, MSIG's Enhanced HomePlus Superior plan, with $80,000 of contents and $115,000 of renovation cover, costs $179.85 a year as of October 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, so verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).