insurance on mortgage martin lewis please advise

lovelyjubbly

I had a meeting with a mortgage advisor today about my mortgage, I am thinking of making overpayments to clear my mortgage early, when I took out my repayment mortgage just over 10 years ago I was told I had to have a life insurance policy or they wouldn't lend me the money, the policy didn't have to be with them, it just had to be enough to cover the outstanding mortgage, should either of us die. We took out a policy with another company and sent the bank (Barclays) the proof. today I was asking the mortgage advisor general questions, and somehow we got talking about life insurance, I said to the advisor that,what with the morgage increases, and having to pay an insurance policy, it made it a very expensive business, he said, of course you don't have to have an insurance policy now, I said to him, what do you mean, he said we don't require you to have insurance policies on repayment mortgages any more, only house insurance, I said when did that come in, he said ages ago, I said, well I wasn't told and he just sort of changed the subject. my question on this forum is, should the bank have informed us that the insurance was no longer needed?, I have paid £34 a month for more than 10 years now and It wasn't necessary!:mad:

thanks in anticipation of any advice

cattie

No, sorry, the bank have no obligation to tell you that life insurance is no longer a requirement for mortgage purposes.

Don't think of it as wasted money, for if anything had happened to either of you during the term of the mortgage, then the policy would have paid up & cleared the mortgage amount outstanding.

toonfish

might not be "necessary" for the bank, but it's a damned good ide for you and your partner. I can never understand the aversion to paying for life insurance, unless you're single with no dependants. If you hadn't taken it and one of you had died then that would be wrong.


It should be compulsory IMO, same as home and car insurance.

lovelyjubbly

thanks for reply toonfish, I have no problem with paying for insurance, be it for the house, car,life or anything else that needs insurance, I do not have any dependants, my husband and I have no need for life insurance as we have savings/investments, enough to pay our morgage off if we had to, my query was that the bank madeit a condition of the mortgage that we had a life insurance policy, and now 10 years later I find it is no longer a requirement, and have no idea when the rule was changed, so I have been paying a life policy all that time when that money could have been put to better use, ie reducing my morgage, or paying some other bill.