Written Answer by Ministry of National Development on Home Protection Scheme

Nov 20, 2018

Mr Gan Thiam Poh: To ask the Minister for National Development 

(a) whether HDB will reconsider to make it compulsory for HDB owners who either use cash or CPF to service their housing loan to sign up for the Home Protection Scheme (HPS); and

(b) in the past three years, how many HDB owners did not use CPF to service their housing loan instalment and did not purchase HPS as well.

Answer:

About 20% of HDB flat buyers in 2017 who took a mortgage loan used cash to service their loans.  Among them, 4 in 10 did not voluntarily take up the Home Protection Scheme (HPS).  Effectively this means that around 92% of recent HDB flat buyers with outstanding loans are covered under the HPS policy, or have voluntarily taken up HPS.  Besides HPS, some home buyers may have purchased mortgage-reducing products from the private sector.  We do not have detailed records of such purchases, but many commercial banks offer such mortgage-reducing insurance (MRI) products as part of their loan financing package to home buyers.  So the overall insurance coverage may well be higher.

HDB will continue to work with CPF Board to further encourage take-up of HPS.  We will continue to monitor the situation and assess whether to implement further measures if the need arises.