S.D. asks from Fort Collins, CO on October 04, 2006
What Is the Deal with Mortgage Insurance?
I have been receiving lots of offers through the mail for mortgage payment protection plans....saying that the company will pay the mortgage if there is job loss or death.
I would like to know if anyone has experience with this and if so what happened?
So What Happened?™
Wow! Thank you for the responses. We met with two sales reps. One quoted a life insurance policy with enough to pay off the mortgage. Another would like to look at our whole financial picture and suggest regular life insurance and retirment investing. We are currently working with guy who will recommend a variety of products to help us cover ourselves for death and/or retirment.
More Answers
S.C. answers from Denver on October 09, 2006
Hi-
The response from Jana is exactly right. My husband is a mortgage broker too and he said the same thing. Mortgage insurance protects the lender not the buyer. Throw that junk in the trash, if you needed to have that insurance it would already have been put in your loan.
1 mom found this helpful
C.B. answers from Phoenix on October 05, 2006
Mortgage insurance is not worth it. It doesn't mean that you get your house or the equity, it just means the bank gets paid off and you owe nothing, but you don't get your house either. (At least that's the fine print in 90% of the ones I've read.) It just upps your rates. In today's market you would be better off selling the home and living off of the equity than bying into mortgage insurance to "break even" and have to move. Or putting the money you would spend on the insurance into a locked savings account.
J.Z. answers from Denver on October 06, 2006
Hi S.,
I work as mortgage broker.
The payment protection plans are disability and term insurance, we call it choke and croak insurance. It is a personal decision but if one wants the insurance, your regular agent will have much better rates. Most offers in the mail are overpriced.
Mortgage insurance is something different. If one buyes a house and finances more than 80% of the sale price will need Mortgage insurance premium (MIP)(in addition to the regular payment). It is to protect the lender in foreclosure situations.
It is factored that approximately 20% of the property value is used up in the foreclosure process. The MIP pays for that cost and it has NO VALUE to the borrower.
I hope that will help you.
Let me know if you need anything else
J.
S.B. answers from Phoenix on October 05, 2006
i have owned my home for about 3 yrs now, i also live in tempe, we checked into that and for the most part i think it's junk, in some cases you can find a good protection plan, but you need to be carefull, they are very exspensive. i hope i was helpful....S.
R.J. answers from Phoenix on October 05, 2006
Stephani ~
I love popular financial advisor and best-selling author, Dave Ramsey. He says never buy insurance from a lender of any kind. The reason? They'll rip you off for sure.
My husband and I have received so many of those offers in the mail since we purchased our home, too. They go straight into file 13. ;)
~ R.
P.H. answers from Denver on October 05, 2006
My brother, who is a mortgage broker, assures me that mortgage insurance is not necessary. It's just a way for the companies to get your money!
S.H. answers from Phoenix on October 05, 2006
I agree with Kimberly. You dont need it but it will be nice to have incase something happens to you or you husband. I do have this type of Insurance but we chose to use a company that my husbands family has used for ever with everything. If that is something you are interested in shop around.
E.C. answers from Denver on October 06, 2006
It's actualy not called mortgage insurance what you are talking about that is something different, but working in the industry I will also tell you that you really don't need it, especially if you have back-ups in case something happens(like life insurance/medical insurance) and what they both offer you. We have both life and medical and with my husbands medical it pays for our expenses if he gets hurt on or off the job. If you don't have any back-ups you might want to consider it only because you can never be to safe and you can never predict if something will happen. It's nice to know that things can be taken care of in case of an incident. If you don'y have anything realy research it or in that case research your other options as well.
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