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Not having insurance could have serious consequences.
Key points
- Property owners are required by mortgage lenders to purchase home insurance.
- Not buying sufficient coverage can have financial consequences.
- Mortgage lenders require coverage to protect their collateral.
If you have a mortgage, your lender almost definitely requires you to have homeowners insurance.
In fact, chances are good you had to provide proof of home insurance when closing on your home loan. And mortgage lenders often require you to pay premiums as part of your monthly mortgage payment, which they collect and turn over to the insurance company just to be sure the payment is made.
So, why does your lender care if you have home insurance coverage? There’s a simple yet important reason why your lender has a very strong interest in you maintaining comprehensive home insurance.
Home insurance is considered essential to protect your lender’s financial interest
Lenders mandate that property owners purchase home insurance because lenders must protect their collateral.
When a mortgage is issued, it’s a secured loan. The lender doesn’t just rely on the homeowner’s promise to repay the mortgage. The mortgage loan provider has a legal interest in the home itself.
The home guarantees the loan, acting as collateral. In the event the buyer of the property chooses not to pay the mortgage loan, or becomes unable to do so, the lender can go through the foreclosure process. This allows the loan provider to sell the home to get the unpaid funds back from the sale proceeds.
But if a home is destroyed or damaged, it creates problems. Most people can’t afford to pay for the repair or rebuilding of a property on their own without insurance. In this case, if the property is not fixed or restored after a disaster, it likely will no longer be worth enough for a foreclosure sale to cover the entire outstanding balance due. And there’s a big risk a homeowner would just walk away from making payments on a home that was destroyed or damaged but not rebuilt.
Homeowners insurance provides the money to rebuild or repair the property after a covered loss to make certain it can be restored. This means there is essentially no risk to the lender of something happening to the collateral that can’t be fixed in a …….