Buying and moving in to your first home is an exciting moment in life. For most people in Singapore, this first home is typically an HDB flat. Before getting the keys to your HDB flat, you may recall having to pay for HDB fire insurance.
While a good and important insurance policy to have, this affordable fire insurance policy may give new homeowners a false sense of security that the flat that they are living in is well insured, even when it may not be.
The HDB fire insurance covers the cost of reinstating damaged internal structures, fixtures, as well as areas built and provided by HDB. However, it does not include additional work that you may have done during renovation as well as content within your home such as your furniture, electronics and personal valuables.
What this means is that if an unfortunate event were to occur in your home – such as a fire or a pipe burst, and damages content within your home, the HDB fire insurance policy that you have bought will not compensate you for these losses that you sustain.
Home content insurance isn’t compulsory in Singapore, but it very well should be
In order to provide coverage for renovation work and content within your home, you need to purchase a separate home content insurance for your home. Home content insurance covers any physical and movable household items or personal belongings including money and valuables kept within the premises of your home which belongs to you or your family members. Your renovation works are also covered under home content insurance.
Since most homeowners easily spend tens of thousands of dollars on their renovation, furniture and electronics in their home, an incident such as a fire can cause them significant financial losses. To protect yourself from this, buy a home content insurance policy as soon as you move in to your home.
Fixtures, Fittings & Renovation: This refers to renovation work that you have spent on your home. It would include floorings, built-in cabinet, kitchen fixtures, feature walls and other electrical work. Do note that some insurers would group renovation and building together while others would keep them separate.
Home Content: This basically refers to your furniture such as your sofa set, dining table, and bed; electronics such as your refrigerator, washing machine and television set; and personal belongings such as your mobile phone, jewellery and money.
How much home content insurance should you cover your home for?
As a general rule of thumb, you should always buy home content insurance up to the amount that you have spent renovating and furnishing your home.
For example, if you have spent up to $50,000 for your flat renovation and a further $30,000 furnishing your home, then you should buy home content insurance which is sufficient to cover this quantum. The rationale is simple. In the event of an incident – such as a fire which completely destroys your home, you want to be able claim an amount which is equivalent to how much you would need to spend in order to reinstate your home back to its original condition.
Since each of us would have spent a different amount renovating our home and buying our furniture and electronics, it made sense to buy a policy which is suitable for your home.
By comparing across 35 different plans offered by 12 insurers, Insurance Market is able to help you sort out the most suitable home content insurance policies based on your customised requirement.
Our rating model takes into consideration the amount of coverage that you need, against the premiums being charged for the coverage. So while we all want to be able to enjoy the highest level of coverage possible, we also want to make sure that the coverage that we receive for our home is worth the premiums that we are paying.
For example, if you indicate that you are the owner of a HDB flat and that you would need $30,000 for home content insurance and $50,000 for your renovation coverage, we will automatically recommend for you the best available home content insurance policies – based on your specific requirement.
The idea here is that for different level of coverage required, there are various policies which are going to be better. At Insurance Market, we can help you sort out between the best plans that you should be choosing from.
