Mortgage Payment Protection Cover Can Protect Your Home

Having to find the money each month to continue meeting your mortgage repayments if you lose your income would be a great struggle. While you could turn to savings to support the outgoings, these could very soon run dry. Relying on the State could also leave you stranded. Considering mortgage payment protection cover is a far better way.

The State can give you help but only for the first ?100,000 of the interest part of the mortgage. To be able to benefit from this you also have to qualify. You would have to be eligible to claim income support and not have a partner in full time employment living with you. If you had taken out the mortgage after October 1995 then you would have to wait for up to 9 months before you would see any help.

Mortgage payment protection can be taken out to insure against the individual being unable to work, a mortgage payment protection policy can be taken for accident and sickness only or for unemployment only due to such as redundancy. You can also choose to protect against all three and the premium for the policy would be based on this, along with your age and how much your mortgage repayments are.

There is a waiting period before the cover would begin to payout and this would depend on the terms set out by the provider. These must be read so that you understand what the mortgage payment protection policy entails and you can find any exclusions here which could apply to the mortgage payment protection cover. Usually mortgage payment protection cover would begin to provide benefit after being unemployed or unfit for work for between 30 and 90 days. The policy would then continue to provide the policyholder with financial security for your mortgage for between 12 and 24 months.

Mortgage payment protection cover has seen problems in the past with the investigation into the sector. This started in 2005 when the Office of Fair Trading received a super complaint from the Citizens Advice. It was found that in some cases, payment protection insurance (PPI) products had been mis-sold. The Financial Services Authority began their own investigation, and handed out fines to several well-known names on the high street.

However it is important to realise that it is not the actual products themselves that are to blame but those who sell them with no training. A standalone specialist provider will back up their mortgage payment protection cover with excellent advice and training. They will answer all questions regarding mortgage payment protection by way of a FAQs page and an ethical provider will give phone and e-mail contact.

While payment protection can be taken out alongside the borrowing with the high street lender, this is often the least preferred way. Historically, premiums are known to be higher than with the independent providers and often very little information is given regarding the contents of the cover. An absence of information given at the time of selling is what has lead to the majority of mis-selling.

Simon Burgess is Managing Director of the award-winning British Insurance, a specialist provider of mortgage payment protection cover, income protection and loan protection insurance.