Becoming unemployed is not something we even like to give any thought to the possibility of happening. However redundancies do happen and you do have to be prepared for the possibility of it happening to you. If you do lose your job and income then things could be extremely tight until you found work again, and with jobs being hard to find, it could be many months before you find something suitable. Mortgage unemployment insurance is one way of safeguarding against this possibility.

The cost of the mortgage unemployment insurance policy would fluctuate between providers; you could also choose to take out protection for unemployment, accident and sickness together for a little more each month. Some providers offer age based cover which takes your age when applying into account, and this is the cheapest way for younger home buyers to protect the huge mortgage they take on. It would also depend on how much you wished to insure against, which can be up to a certain amount each month.

Your mortgage payment protection policy would allow you the peace of mind that you would not get into arrears. If you do get into arrears and cannot show the lender how you are able to catch up, then they will have no choice but to seek repossession of your home. Mortgage problems can begin from the first missed payment which will show up on your credit file and go against you and the problem can very quickly escalate to you being taken to court.

However there is no need to worry about any of this if you have protected the repayments of your mortgage. You would have to check when the policy would begin and end as these differ considerably. Some mortgage providers would payout an income after you had been unemployed for a period of 30 days continually. Others could ask for at least a 90 day waiting period before they would payout. You could get a policy that would run and provide an income for 12 months and some providers may offer a policy that extends for up to 24 months. The details can be found in the terms of the policy and need to be checked along with the exclusions.

You do have to consider the exclusions as these are what help you to decide if you would be eligible to claim on the mortgage unemployment insurance policy you are thinking of taking out. Problems in the past did arise as a result of consumers not being aware of exclusions and being sold policies they could not claim against. This was brought to the Office of Fair Trading`s attention and resulted in the sector being investigated by both the Office Of Fair Trading and the Financial Services Authority, along with an in-depth review by the Competition Commission. The majority of fines that were handed out were to high street lenders who tagged payment protection insurance onto loans and mortgages at the time of selling the loan. One of which was a mortgage lender who had failed to have the best interests of the consumer at heart. Mis-selling has ranged from selling protection to those of retirement age and to those not in a full time position.