If you have a mortgage hanging over your head then you do need to take into account how you would be able to carry on paying the repayments if you lost your income. While no one likes to think that they might lose their income redundancies can happen. You could also become sick or have an accident that meant you would be unable to work for many months. While you might be able to keep your head above water for a couple of weeks, it would be almost impossible for months. One way of protecting your mortgage and other outgoings is by taking out income insurance mortgage payment protection.

A policy can be taken out with an independent provider and this is the cheapest way of securing against an unknown future. All policies offered by standalone payment protection specialists would have exclusions in them. These are what you need to check to be sure of eligibility. It is essential that you compare them along with cost of the premiums as each provider can put in different exclusions with some being frequently found in all cover. If you then had to make a claim on the policy you could do so after a set amount of time and receive the income you insured against as a tax-free payment.

The terms and conditions of the income insurance mortgage payment protection policy are also where you can find when the cover starts to payout and for how long. Some providers would payout on your policy once you had been unemployed or incapacitated for 30 days, while with others you might have to wait for anything up to the 90th day. How long you would be able to claim would also depend on the provider. Some will payout on the cover for 12 months while other providers might offer a payment each month for 24 months. How much you would payout in premiums each month would be based on the amount of your income you wished to protect and your age. If the policy you take out is based on age, then the younger you are the bigger savings you are able to make.

Income insurance mortgage payment protection should not be confused with income protection insurance. Income protection insurance is a very similar type of policy that can be taken out to protect your mortgage repayments and other outgoings. While this is also a very valuable form of protection the terms and conditions of it are totally different. Therefore you have to decide which form of protection for a lost income would be the most suitable based on your circumstances. Income protection insurance would also supply you with an income if you were to lose your own, however it would do so for a lot longer period than income payment protection. This policy would payout to you for up to retirement age if it was needed. You would have to wait for longer before the benefit would begin though, and there are also many other terms and conditions which would have to be met for you to be eligible to take on the policy.