Mortgage Life Insurance

Mortgage life insurance is a form of insurance specifically designed to protect a repayment mortgage. If the were to die while the mortgage life insurance was in force, the would pay out a capital sum that will be just sufficient to repay the outstanding mortgage.

Mortgage life insurance is supposed to protect the 's ability to repay the mortgage for the lifetime of the mortgage. This is in contrast to Private mortgage insurance, which is meant to protect the against the risk of default on the part of the borrower.

When the insurance commences, the value of the insurance coverage must equal the capital outstanding on the repayment mortgage and the policy’s termination date must be the same as the date scheduled for the final payment on the repayment mortgage. The insurance company then calculates the annual rate at which the insurance coverage should decrease in order to mirror the value of the capital outstanding on the repayment mortgage. Even if the client is behind on repayments, the insurance will normally adhere to its original schedule and will not keep up with the outstanding debt.

Some mortgage life insurance policies will also pay out if the policyholder is diagnosed with a terminal illness from which the policyholder is expected to die within 12 months of diagnosis. Insurance companies sometimes add other features into their mortgage life insurance policies to reflect conditions in their country’s domestic insurance market and their domestic tax regulations.

Based on the mechanics of the product, mortgage life insurance is a financial product which paradoxically declines in value as the client-borrower pays more premium to the insurer. In many cases, traditional life insurance (whether term or permanent) can offer a better level of protection for considerably smaller premiums.

The biggest advantage of traditional life insurance over mortgage life insurance is that the former maintains its face value throughout the lifetime of the policy, whereas the latter promises to pay out an amount equal to the client's outstanding mortgage debt at any point in time, which is inherently a decreasing sum. Hence, mortgage life insurance is extremely profitable for lenders and/or insurers and equally disadvantageous to borrowers.

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Wikipedia