All,
For compliance with RAGAGEP and industry standards, HIPS (aka HIPPS) do not have to have the same PFD as a relief device. Of course, any individual company can choose to make that an internal standard, but it's not an industry requirement. Refer to API 521 Appendix E. The HIPS SIL requirement can be selected based on the case-specific hazard for the specific application.
When implementing a HIPS, the most critical consideration in my opinion is the company's integrity management system for auditing, inspection, testing, etc. If the company doesn't have a high integrity safety culture and strong internal requirement/controls, then I would avoid using HIPS. When they are used in such companies, I'd recommend designing for SIL 3. But in other companies where there's a strong integrity management system for SIS instrumentation, then I'm perfectly comfortable with utilizing HIPS. In such cases, a particular HIPS could be SIL-1 if that's what is needed to close the risk gap for that specific case.
It's not uncommon to find cases/applications in which relief devices are inadequate or unreliable. In such cases an instrumented HIPS design can often provide the safety protection that's needed. For example, one shouldn't always be satisfied with relief devices in systems that are like to cause plugging, or with relief devices that create a high risk secondary hazard if they do open. We're much better off today having HIPS in our toolkit of options. The one thing we can says that's categorically true for every case is that the engineer must always use their brain to assess what is really needed for each application.