Humidity is one of principal environmental parameters that plays an important role in various application areas. Using measurement of strain induced in an optical fiber by a water swellable coating represents a promising approach for realization of distributed humidity sensing (DHS). In this work, humidity and temperature response of four different commercial PI-coated fibers and four tight-buffered (TB) fibers is investigated with the aim of evaluating their potential for development of DHS in context of water ingress sensor for high-voltage power cable splices. PI-coated fibers exhibited close-to-linear humidity and temperature response. While the temperature response is relatively coating-independent, magnitude of humidity response was broadly correlated to the relative fiber-to-coating thickness ratio. In contrast, both humidity and temperature response of TB fibers is strongly influenced by buffer type, with Leoni TB900L fiber with Hytrel buffer exhibiting largest humidity and temperature sensitivity. While the response of tight-buffered fibers is generally nonlinear, roughly three-times higher humidity response can be achieved with TB900L compared to the most sensitive PI-coated fiber. Using the TB fiber can be, therefore, advantageous for simpler water detection applications, such as one targeted in this study, when larger sensitivity is more important than the linear response of the sensor.