Renovation Contractor Insurance in Singapore: What It Covers and What It Does Not

"Don't worry, we're insured."

It is one of the most common sentences in this trade and one of the least examined. Almost every homeowner hears it, almost nobody asks which policy, and the two sides usually walk away believing completely different things about what has just been agreed.

The gap matters because renovation is one of the few things you buy where strangers with power tools work unsupervised inside your home, above someone else's ceiling, for weeks. Here is what a renovation contractor's insurance actually does, what it does not, and the four documents worth seeing before anyone starts hacking.

There is no single "renovation insurance"

There are several different policies doing several different jobs, and they are not interchangeable. When someone says "we're insured", the honest follow-up question is: insured for what?

Public liability. This is the one most renovation contractors carry, and it is about third parties: injury to someone who is not the contractor's employee, and damage to property that is not the contractor's own. The neighbour downstairs whose ceiling is stained, the delivery man hit by something falling in the corridor, the common property scratched moving a slab. This is the policy that matters most in a Singapore flat, because your neighbours are on all six sides of you.

Work injury compensation. This covers the contractor's own workers if they are hurt on the job. Employers in Singapore are required to maintain work injury compensation insurance for manual employees — it is an obligation the contractor owes their staff, not something you buy, but you have an interest in it existing. A worker injured in your flat with no cover behind them is a situation you do not want to be adjacent to.

Contractors' all risks. This covers the works themselves while they are being built. It is normal on construction projects and it is not standard on an ordinary flat renovation. Do not assume it is there, and be careful with the phrase "all risk" — it is often used loosely to mean "we have insurance", which is not what it means at all. Ask for the policy name in writing rather than accepting the phrase.

Your own home insurance. The one everybody forgets. Many home policies restrict or exclude cover while a property is undergoing structural alteration, or while it is unoccupied. Telling your insurer before works start costs one email and can be the difference between a paid claim and a refused one. Do it even if the contractor is fully covered, because the two policies protect different people.

What public liability does not cover

This is where most of the misunderstanding lives. Public liability is a third-party policy. It is not a quality guarantee, and it is not a warranty.

• The workmanship itself. A floor laid badly, a hollow tile, a carpentry run that bows — those are contractual matters, not insurance claims. They are answered by your defects list and your warranty, which is why what a renovation warranty covers and for how long is a separate and more useful conversation.
• Redoing the work. Even where damage is covered, the cost of getting the defective work right again generally is not.
• Consequential loss. The hotel nights while a flooded flat dries out, the rent you did not collect, the moving costs — those tend to sit outside a public liability policy entirely.
• Your belongings and dust. The sofa you left in the flat, the furniture that got covered in hacking dust. Protection of your own contents is a site-management matter to agree up front, not an insurance question.
• Theft from site. Usually excluded, and usually the reason for the conversation about who holds the keys.

Put plainly: insurance answers "who pays when this job damages someone or something". It does not answer "who pays when this job is done badly". Different problem, different document.

Where it actually gets used: the neighbour's ceiling

The most common real claim in Singapore renovation is water. A waterproofing membrane breached during hacking, a floor trap disturbed, a pipe nicked behind a wall — and three weeks later the unit below has a brown patch and a photograph.

At that point three questions decide everything: whose work caused it, is that party insured for third-party property damage, and is the policy still in force. We have written the full sequence in renovation damage to your neighbour's unit and who pays. Insurance is only one of the three answers, and it is the one you cannot arrange retrospectively.

The condo case: the MCST asks first

In a condominium you often do not have to remember any of this, because the management office will ask before it issues a renovation permit. Insurance details, the contractor's particulars and a renovation deposit are a normal part of that application, and the specific requirements come from that development's own by-laws rather than from a national rule.

The practical implication is a timing one: get the contractor's insurance certificate early, because a missing document is one of the routine reasons a permit application sits for a week. Condo renovation rules and the MCST approval process covers the rest of that submission.

In an HDB flat the permit process is different, and it is worth being precise about one thing: HDB registration and insurance are two separate matters. A contractor being listed in HDB's Directory of Renovation Contractors tells you about their registration status; it is not, by itself, the answer to "are you insured, and for how much". Ask both questions.

The four things to ask for, before anyone starts

1. The certificate of insurance itself — a PDF from the insurer or broker, not a logo on a quotation and not a screenshot of a renewal notice.
2. The named insured, matched to your contract. This one catches people. The policy must be in the name of the company you are actually contracting with. A certificate in the name of a related company, a sole proprietorship, or a person, when your invoice comes from a private limited company, is not the same protection.
3. The period of insurance. Check the expiry date against your programme, not against today. A twelve-week renovation starting in the last month of a policy year needs a renewal you have not seen yet.
4. The limit, and whether it is per event or in the aggregate. "Per event" resets for each incident; "in the aggregate" is a total for the whole policy year, and may already be partly used by another job. Ask which one it is.

One more that is worth asking on any job with several trades: are subcontractors covered by this policy? Tiling, electrical and glass are frequently subcontracted. If the main contractor's policy does not extend to them, there is a gap exactly where the highest-risk work happens.

What to do if something goes wrong

Insurers care about notification and evidence, and both are time-sensitive.

Photograph everything on the day, with dates. Report it to the contractor in writing rather than by phone, so that a record exists of when they were told. Do not authorise repairs to a third party's property, or agree who is at fault, before the contractor has notified their insurer — a well-intentioned "we'll sort it out" made on a landing has ended more than one claim. And keep your own record: dates, photographs, who said what, in the same numbered form as a defects list.

Insurance is the last line, not the first

Everything above is what happens after something has gone wrong. Almost all of it is prevented earlier, by the boring things: a contractor who actually protects floors and lifts, a written schedule of works, a defects mechanism that has teeth, and a payment schedule that keeps the retention where it belongs.

Those are worth more than any certificate, and they are set at signing. The questions worth asking before you sign is where insurance belongs in the conversation — asked once, early, in one line, alongside everything else.

The short version

1. "We're insured" is not an answer. Ask which policy.
2. Public liability protects third parties. It does not fix bad workmanship.
3. See the certificate. Check the name matches your contract and the dates cover your job.
4. Ask whether the limit is per event or in the aggregate, and whether subcontractors are included.
5. Tell your own home insurer that works are starting.
6. If something happens: photograph it, report it in writing, and do not settle it on the landing.

If you want a straight answer about yours

Send us what your contractor has given you and we will tell you what it is and what it is not — including when the honest answer is that it is perfectly normal and there is nothing to worry about.

Larry Contractors Pte Ltd is an HDB Licensed Renovation Contractor, licence HB-09-5667H.

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