3 things you might not know about Mortgage Protection Insurance

Mortgage Protection Insurance is life assurance cover that will clear your mortgage in the event of your (or your spouse’s) death. While it is obviously very necessary, taking out this cover often comes at a bad time for consumers, who are to the pin of their collars facing a new mortgage and all of the costs associated with a new house. For this reason, it is really important that you get the best (often the cheapest!) cover in place. Here are three points that you may not have known about mortgage protection insurance, that just might help you to get the right policy for you.

You don’t have to take out this policy with your bank. Your bank may arrange your mortgage for you. They may also insist on you having mortgage protection insurance in place as a condition of your loan. That is their right. However they cannot by law insist on you taking out this policy with them and cannot make the loan conditional on you doing so. You retain the right to take out any mortgage protection policy available in the market, once you ensure the required amount of cover is in place.

Now this is really important!

Your bank will usually have access to the policies of a single life assurance company. However your Financial Broker will have access to policies of all of the insurers in the Irish market, making sure that you get the very best / cheapest policy to meet your needs. Your bank must accept this policy.

Your cover does not have to decrease in line with the mortgage

The life assurance cover within traditional mortgage protection policies decreases in line with the outstanding mortgage amount. This is the minimum amount of cover that you must have in place – enough to clear the loan at any stage during the lifetime of the mortgage.

However you can have more cover in place. As part of a wider financial plan developed by your Financial Broker, you might choose to have a level amount of cover that will not fall, possibly for the original mortgage amount. In the event of death, the life cover amount will then be greater than the mortgage due, as some of the mortgage will have been repaid in the meantime. This excess cover is simply then paid to your estate.

There are many other benefits available

One of the benefits of taking out your Mortgage Protection insurance through your Financial Broker is that you can tap in to their knowledge of all of the plans that are available in the market, and access features that might not be available through the policy offered by your bank.

There are many other potential feature and benefits available through different insurers in the Irish market, and some of these features might just be very important to you. So talk to your Financial Broker and get the best policy in place for you!