If you take your time and shop around for a mortgage protection quote with independent providers you can generally save a great deal on the premiums for your policy. With some providers you might be eligible to save up to as much as 40% on the cost of your cover. The amount you have to pay in premiums for the cover would be based on your age, the events you protected and the amount of your mortgage repayment you decided you wanted to protect. The amount you could protect would depend on the provider and all will limit this amount. Therefore they would have to agree to your chosen sum. This amount of money would then be yours each month for up to the term if a claim had to be made. When you could make your claim would depend on the provider. With some this could be once the 30th day of unemployment or incapacity has passed or it could be as long as day 90 before you can claim. Just as when you are eligible to claim can differ then so does how long the benefit continues. Your chosen provider might pay out your income over 12 months or they could extend this for up to a maximum of 24 months should you need to keep claiming. However once the term had been reached then benefits would stop even if you were still remain incapacitated or unemployed. As the terms do differ vastly it is essential that you check them before you rush into taking out the cover. Ask yourself how you would manage to maintain your mortgage repayments whilst waiting to claim if you were unable to claim for 90 days. Also consider the fact that if the provider offered a policy that paid out over 24 months it would cost a great deal more than one providing an income for 12 months. To help you to keep down the cost of mortgage cover you could choose what events you need protection for. While you can take out your protection to insure against both redundancy and incapacity together you could choose to tailor the policy. For instance if you have a good employer and can rely on a good sick pay plan you might just take out protection for redundancy on its own. Alternatively you could take out a policy just to protect against incapacity alone. Some generous providers will pay out an income if you should need to become a carer for a loved one. Carer cover means you would not have to get a stranger to come and take care of your family member nor pay out associated costs. If you are a first time home owner then look for a mortgage protection quote that would take age into account. The younger home owner really has to stretch their outgoings each month by repaying their mortgage which means that they have little left over for expensive protection. A provider offering age based cover really throws them a lifeline as they make mortgage protection affordable.

One of the best ways to make savings on your mortgage protection quote is with an independent provider. You could save up to as much as 40% on the cost of insurance and you would have more control over your policy than when taking it with the high street provider. Your age, the level of cover taken and the amount you choose to protect of your mortgage repayments all go towards setting the premiums for the policy.

The amount you do choose to insure would be the sum of money that is paid back to you if you should suffer from one of the events protected against, i.e. Unemployment or incapacity and so it would need pre-agreeing with the provider. The income is paid each month once the deferment period had passed and for the term of the policy. Usually the deferment period would fall in between the 30th and the 90th days of your unemployment or incapacity with payments lasting for either 12 months or 24 months. You could expect to pay out more for a policy that would pay 24 monthly payments and 12 months of protection could be adequate time for you to have recovered and been able to get back to work or for you to have searched around and found work.

Being able to tailor your policy to suit your needs is great as you are then only paying out for protection that you actually want. You could take a mortgage protection quote for a policy that would payout if you suffered either unemployment or incapacity or you could just cover incapacity alone or unemployment alone. This would help to keep down the cost of your quote.

Mortgage payment protection can make a huge difference to how you manage during redundancy or unemployment. With the cover to supply you with a substantial amount of your mortgage repayment you would not to worry about falling into mortgage arrears that could perhaps lead to you losing your home. Without it and lifestyle changes might have to be made and these would have an effect on all family members. Even if you were to make the most drastic of cutbacks you could find yourself without the money to be able to maintain your repayments.

Many homeowners believe they would simply be able to get in touch with the unemployment office and receive an income so they could keep their mortgage repayments up to date. However this is not so, you would need to be eligible and then you would be entitled to receive an income towards your interest repayments. You would need to wait for several weeks before any money came your way and would already be behind on the repayments and feeling anxiety. A competitive mortgage protection quote leading to a policy would allow you to avoid this anxiety.

If you look online you are able to find a cheap mortgage protection quote which with some providers could mean you make savings of as much as 40% on the premiums. Lenders will usually offer you cover for your mortgage repayments but this can be one of the dearest ways of taking out the protection. When you take your policy with the payment protection specialist you not only make savings but also have options regarding your protection.

One of these options is how much of your mortgage repayment you want to protect. The amount you choose to cover, which the provider pre-agrees to, is the amount that is given back to you if you need to make a claim. You would have to wait for a period of time before putting your claim in with the provider and this can be between 30 and 90 days of unemployment or incapacity.

You would then have a certain amount of time during which you would receive a payment each month and this will either be 12 months or 24 depending on the terms offered. When the cover reaches its term it then ceases regardless of whether you have got back to work or have made a recovery.

If you were to take mortgage cover that is offered by the lender you would not be given a mortgage protection quote. Instead the lender will usually work out how much the protection would cost over the full term of the mortgage. This amount is then generally added into the mortgage which means you would be paying interest on not only the amount you borrow but also the payment protection itself. In this case you could be paying hundreds of pounds more than you need to if you had chosen to take your policy independently.

Mortgage payment protection with the independent provider would also come with the choice of cover needed. While you can take the protection against unemployment and incapacity together you can also tailor this to suit your lifestyle. If your employer pays you a generous amount of sick pay then you might just want to consider covering your mortgage repayments against the possibility of losing your income after being made redundant. However if you are worried about how you would manage if you lost your income after falling sick or suffering an accident then you could just take out protection against incapacity. Providers take this into account when determining how much you pay for the premiums along with your age and the amount of your payment you choose to protect. As the premiums are based on age this means the younger you are when applying the cheaper you get the insurance. An age based mortgage protection quote means that protection is affordable for the younger generation who often stretch their budgets to the absolute maximum.

A mortgage protection quote can work out cheaper online than the cost of protection if you take it with the mortgage. High street lenders will try to get you to take the cover with your borrowing as they make a great deal in profits, around £4 billion each year, from adding the protection in. However you can choose to take cover independently and this can lead to great savings and more control over your protection. Cover could be taken to protect against unemployment and incapacity or you could protect against unemployment on its own or incapacity alone.

With an independent provider you would be able to pay a monthly premium for your policy. The premium takes many factors into account and one of them is the amount chosen to protect of your repayment. The provider will agree with this amount and then you would receive this sum back if you become a victim to one of the events insured. This amount would then be paid to you each month after the deferment period which could be as little as the 30th day and as late as the 90th. Payments will then continue for either 12 months or 24 months and they will be tax free, after this period of time they would cease regardless of your circumstances.

By taking a mortgage protection quote and having a policy to fall back onto it could be enough to stop mortgage arrears from occurring due to you not having a regular income. Even if you were to cutback as much as you could each month you might still fail to find the money needed for your mortgage each month. If you were to fall behind on your repayments and be unable to repay what you owe the lender would take repossession proceedings against you. The substantial sum of money that a policy provides could stop this from happening.

When getting a mortgage protection quote with an independent provider you would also get information regarding the cover you were considering. This would allow you to make an informed decision over the suitability of the policy as there are exclusions which need to be checked against your personal circumstances before taking it out. Often when the protection is included in with the mortgage very little information is given, which in the past has led to protection being mis-sold. In some cases mortgage cover has been included into the borrowing without the consumer asking for it. However in the future this will stop when new rulings come into force. Lenders will be banned from selling a policy at the same time as the mortgage and instead will have to wait for a period of 7 days before contacting the consumer and asking if they need cover. Of course there is nothing to stop the consumer from deciding to shop around for the protection independently during this time.

In an ideal world, finding out whether the mortgage protection quote you have been given is a competitive one should be simple and straight forward. Unfortunately, the world of payment protection insurance – including mortgage protection – has been less than ideal. A catalogue of serious mis-selling of over-priced products has meant that very many customers have ended up with cover that is inappropriate to their needs and certainly more expensive than it need be.

So serious has the problem been, in fact, that the Financial Ombudsman receives some 500 complaints every week about payment protection insurance, accounting for one in four of all complaints it receives. This is despite a series of high-profile fines imposed on a number of those banks and building societies responsible for the most blatant mis-selling practices. Perhaps the most notorious of these was the £7 million fine imposed on Alliance and Leicester by regulators, the Financial Services Authority. But fines of around £1 million have also been imposed on HFC Bank and on the internet bank, Egg.

The size of such fines pales into insignificance, however, when compared to the profits such lenders have been making from the sale of payment protection insurance. The widespread over-pricing of such products has meant that many thousands of customers have failed to be given a competitive mortgage protection quote.

Clearly, this is a serious failing since mortgage insurance of this kind will protect the policy holder during times of incapacity (being unable to work through an accident or illness) or whilst unemployed – the insurance is designed to make sure that the mortgage repayments continue to be made for as long as the interruption of the normally earned income persists (typically for up to a maximum of 12 months, although this may vary from policy to policy).

A company that knows the importance to the customer of receiving a reliable, competitively priced mortgage protection quote is British Insurance. This is one of the country’s leading specialist providers of such insurance. As an independent provider it has also been able to distance itself successfully from the over-zealous and unfair mis-selling practices of those distributors that are also in the business of arranging mortgages and other loans. As a result, the mortgage protection quote from a company such as British Insurance is typically 40% lower than for comparable products elsewhere.

As the company’s managing director, Simon Burgess, puts it: “Reliable mortgage insurance is more important than ever in these difficult economic times and the very least the much-beleaguered consumer should expect is a fair and competitively priced mortgage protection quote”.

By choosing to check out a cheap mortgage protection quote online you can make great savings on the cost of protecting your monthly mortgage repayments. One of the cheapest quotes you will be given is with payment protection specialist British Insurance who offer savings of as much as 40%. They also provide a policy that comes with just a few exclusions and is backed up with expert advice.

Mortgage protection can be taken out by insuring up to a certain amount of the monthly mortgage repayment you make which the provider would pre-agree upon. You could choose to insure against the possibility that you might suffer an illness or accident. You could also protect against being made redundant or you can protect against all three events altogether. If you were then to become a victim you would have the policy to fall back onto. Of course you would have to be unemployed or incapacitated for a period of time before making a claim and this would depend on the provider you choose.

If your choice of provider is ethical specialist British Insurance you can make a claim on the policy after the 30th day of incapacity or unemployment has passed. British Insurance would backdate the protection to day one of your unemployment or incapacity and then continue to payout each month up to the 12th month. This could be more than enough time for you to have made a recovery or to have searched around for work.

If you take a look around online and compare a mortgage protection quote with other providers you would have to find and check the terms they offered as some providers could provide a policy that would run for 24 months. You would also need to find out how long you would need to wait before you could put in a claim on the policy as this could be up to 90 days.

Being able to maintain the mortgage repayments over the term of the mortgage, which could be many years, is essential. If you were to fall behind on the repayments into mortgage arrears and you are unable to catch up on them the lender would have no alternative but to take you to court. They would seek to take repossession of your home and you could be given an eviction date.

A cheap mortgage protection quote could mean that for a small premium each month you would not have this worry. A policy could be a better solution than risking being able to use your savings to keep servicing your mortgage each month. If relying on savings you would have to take into account that you could have to use them for several months. If you were also considering falling back onto State benefits you could find yourself being ineligible. There would be a great deal of criteria that would have to be met in order for you to claim an income towards your mortgage repayment and even if you could you would only receive money towards the interest repayment. At the present time you would also have to wait for several weeks before seeing any money at all.

New rules announced by the Competition Commission in November 2008 will ensure that consumers are far more likely to receive a fair mortgage protection quote.

After many years of blatant mis-selling by many big-name banks and building societies, and complaints from the Office of Fair Trading and the Financial Services Commission, the Competition Commission has finally devised a new set of rules to help restore consumer confidence in the mortgage protection they are buying.

Whilst currently seeking industry feedback on the proposals, the new consumer safeguards include the following proposals:

Cooling off

The principal safeguard will be a ban on mortgage lenders (or any other credit-granting institution, for that matter) selling payment protection insurance to any customer within 14 days of arranging the principal mortgage or loan. This condition is designed to achieve a number of things.

Firstly, it takes the heat out of a situation in which the finance institution might be tempted (and certainly has been in the past) to exploit the “point of sale” climate in which the customer is led to believe there to be an automatic or even obligatory connection between the loan and the mortgage protection insurance. In the heat of the moment, therefore, many customers were sold mortgage protection policies they might otherwise not have chosen.

Such a cooling off period also allows the consumer to consider the wider market and compare mortgage protection quotes. Providers will be operating in a more competitive market, therefore.

Personal quotes

Equally important will be the provider’s responsibility for preparing and making available to the customer a fully personalised mortgage protection quote. This has been a service sadly lacking in some cases in the past. If detailed quotes were offered at all, they were frequently misleading to customers who signed up for mortgage protection knowing very little about its true costs or benefits.

In addition, annual statements should be provided to customers of mortgage protection policies so that they will be reminded of how much they are paying and have the opportunity if they so wish of switching to an alternative insurance provider.

Other requirements

There are a number of additional new requirements, including, for example, the need to publish mortgage protection policy costs in a common format – to make price comparisons more straight forward – together with clear advice that such cover is optional and can be bought from other providers. All providers will also be required to share policy details with regulatory bodies such as the Financial Services Authority and the Office of Fair Trading.

Comment

Commenting on the Competition Commission’s latest proposals, Simon Burgess of independent insurance providers, British Insurance, says: “We’ve long been championing the right of the much-beleaguered consumer to a fair and accurate mortgage protection quote – at long last, it looks as though the rest of the industry is being brought into line with practices we’ve been pursuing for years”.

A cheap mortgage protection quote can be found online with an independent provider. By choosing to shop around for a policy you can compare premiums and what the policy entails. Standalone payment protection specialists will offer the cheapest premiums and along with this they will provide the key facts which will help you to decide if the policy would be suitable. A policy might be offered when borrowing, however usually this would be one of the dearest ways of protecting your monthly repayments.

Anyone who wants to protect against the possibility that they might lose their monthly income through unemployment or incapacity should look into mortgage cover. It can be taken out by paying a premium each month based on age, level of cover and the amount chosen to protect. You can get a mortgage protection quote based on how much it would cost to cover every £100 of your mortgage repayment. The amount you chose to protect against unemployment or incapacity would be the income you would receive back each month if you became a victim to one of the events.

There would be a period of time you would have to wait after becoming unemployed or incapacitated and this depends on the provider. A policy would then payout for a fixed period of time before it stops. If you chose to take to get your mortgage protection quote with independent provider British Insurance you could claim from the 30th day of your incapacity or unemployment. British Insurance would then supply you with an income each month for as long as the 12th month.

The money from the policy would go a long way towards ensuring that you have something to fall back onto. While it might not provide you with the whole of the mortgage repayment it would at least supply you with a huge part of it. If you do not have anything to fall back onto if you were to lose your income you would have the added worry of being able to maintain your repayments. If you were to fall behind on the repayments you could be looking at losing your home through repossession.

A cheap mortgage protection quote from British Insurance could be tailored to meet your needs. You could choose to take protection against accident, sickness and unemployment together. However you could also choose to just protect against unemployment only or incapacity only. Your age is also taken into account with British Insurance which means that the younger you are when you apply for the protection the cheaper the premiums would be.

Just as you would shop around for a new TV or similar, so you do so too for your mortgage payment protection insurance (MPPI) cover. You can do this by getting a mortgage protection quote from an independent provider.

But first of all, what does the cover actually do? The concept is that it protects your home from repossession – which is especially comforting in these troubled economic times. In the event of you being made redundant or becoming incapacitated, the policy will step in and help you carry on meeting your mortgage repayments by providing a tax free lump sum every month.

How does it work – when can I claim?

Policy terms and features will vary among the different mortgage protection providers, but typically, there will be a waiting period before you can make a claim. Usually this will be anything between day 30 and 90 after the event. Do look out for insurers who will backdate your claim to the first day, so you can feel the full benefit of the cover then.

Once the claim starts to pay out, it will provide the monthly benefit for up to 12-24 months depending on the policy small print, or until you get back to work. This should give you more than enough time to find a new job or get back on the road to recovery.

Do I really need it?

You might think that mortgage payment insurance is an expense you don’t need at a time when you are already financially stretched. Or maybe you plan to live off any savings in the event that you lose your job or otherwise are unable to work. However, this type of thinking is why so many homeowners sadly lose their homes because they cannot meet their monthly mortgage repayments for whatever financial reason they’re facing.

If you shop around, you can get a low cost mortgage protection quote. In fact, by going with a standalone provider such as British Insurance, you can save around 40% on the cost of the cover, compared to those on the high street.

Managing Director of British Insurance, Simon Burgess, is a staunch campaigner for consumer rights when it comes to the selling of mortgage protection insurance and regularly campaigns to this effect, meaning you’ll get a fair deal.

Considerations

When choosing your cover, do compare the policies on a like for basis so that you get the right level of cover. Things to look out for include the exclusions. Some exclusions are universal to all protection policies and can include being of retirement age, suffering a pre-existing medical condition, or if you are only in part time employment. Providers can add in others so checking the wording of the terms and conditions is essential before you sign on the dotted line.

Finally, note that some providers will provide a mortgage protection quote that only covers your monthly mortgage repayments. Remember to include protection for the cost of your mortgage life insurance and your home and contents insurance as well as any other mortgage related costs.

There are many ways people can minimise their chances of falling upon hard times. Saving for the future is a good start, as is keeping debt to a bare minimum. Just about everyone also has a car insurance policy if they drive a vehicle, and many people also take out medical cover and home and contents insurance. But there’s also a way for mortgage holders to protect their ability to keep up with home loans. Some insurance policies can effectively provide a buffer if someone is struggling to keep up with the regular commitments to the bank. A mortgage protection quote can also help someone to get an idea of the cost involved, and shopping around can usually find just about anyone an affordable policy.

Mortgage protection, also sometimes known as mortgage payment protection insurance, effectively helps to guarantee someone’s ability to keep up with monthly repayments even if they face a crisis. Typical circumstances which are covered include losing an income through accident and injury, long-term sickness, and involuntary redundancy. A basic shortage of cash can be dramatically worsened if someone suddenly loses their job through no fault of their own, and can sometimes push someone over the edge to face the threat of repossession.

Subject to a successful claim, an insurer providing mortgage protection will provide a policyholder with a regular cash amount towards their homeloan-related costs. This will continue for 12 to 24 months, depending on the insurer, or until the person has found new work or is back up on their feet or able to return to their normal job.

Most policies will cover 50 per cent of someone’s monthly homeloan-related costs, including the repayments themselves, the interest, buildings and contents insurance, and even council tax. Utility bills and groceries may also be covered. Fifty per cent of this total is the starting point - if someone is after a greater slice of cover, they will usually be able to negotiate with the insurer and get a higher level of protection for a more expensive premium.

Getting a mortgage protection quote is the first step on the road to getting a policy, and it could pay not to simply go to your homeloan lender or a big name insurance company. Although these are common sources of this type of insurance, this does not mean they are the best value. Other companies such as the ethical British Insurance are more independent and do not offer loans.

Simon Burgess, managing director of British Insurance, said: “Consumers may be surprised by what they can save after getting a different mortgage protection quote to the one given to them by their regular insurer or mortgage provider. Companies like ours shun rip-off tactics in favour of getting the best deal possible for our customers. The right kind of cover can make a crucial difference in difficult times and we specialise in acting quickly on claims, ensuring our policyholders do not suffer any unnecessary extra stress after losing their incomes.”