Did you know that when you upgrade from an HDB to a condominium or private property you lose the Home Protection Scheme provided by our government.
Many of my clients are completely unaware of this.
What’s more, they’ve lost track of which coverage is meant for which purpose.
And because of this, they are paying FAR too much for home insurance.
Matthew is one of these clients.
He recently changed his residential address and moved into a new home.
I congratulated him on upgrading and asked if he wanted to check on his current housing loan.
Matthew had around $600K in debt.
And since he also had a child who is 7 years old we decided to also check if he had sufficient coverage at the moment to cater for additional liabilities (So as not to burden his dependents in case of an unfortunate event.)
But when we started to review his existing policies we discovered he had no idea of how much and what type of coverage he had.
And here’s the thing.
Matthew was completely unaware that he was going to lose the Home Protection Scheme (HPS) that the government had covered him with.
In case you don’t know what the Home Protection Scheme (HPS) is here’s a short explanation:
The Home Protection Scheme (HPS) is a mortgage-reducing insurance that protects CPF members and their families against losing their HDB flat in the event of death, terminal illness or total permanent disability.
HPS insures members up to age 65 or until their housing loans are paid up, whichever comes first.
You have to be insured under Home Protection Scheme (HPS) if you are using your CPF savings to pay your monthly housing loan instalments for your HDB flat – yes it’s compulsory – unless you have applied to be exempted.
You can apply for HPS exemption if you already have one or more of the following insurance policies.
Whole life.
Term life.
Endowments
Life riders (Must be attached to a basic policy.)
Mortgage reducing term assurance (MRTA) / Decreasing term rider.
These policies must cover your outstanding housing loan up to the full term of the loan or 65 years old, whichever comes first.
(Or in the event of death, terminal illness or total permanent disability.)
Your exemption from Home Protection Scheme (HPS) may be revoked if any of the insurance policies used for the exemption is discontinued or altered.
Subsequently, the board would extend a Home Protection Scheme (HPS) cover to you based on the declared percentage that you were exempted for, subject to the board’s terms and conditions.
Bottom line, you could be paying FAR too much for insurance or have needless coverage.
And if you wish to be exempted from Home Protection Scheme (HPS) you will need to apply for it.
For more details, refer to the CPF website or feel free to contact me for more help with this
http://thefinlens.com/what-you-need-to-know-now-about-the-home-protection-scheme-and-why-you-could-be-paying-too-much-for-insurance/
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