A mortgage is a non-negotiable debt – you can not avoid paying it. Circumstances such as illness, loss of work or death will put a stop to your ability to meet your mortgage payments.

There are specialist insurance products available to give you peace of mind when you take out a mortgage. Most, if not all lenders, will insist on you taking out adequate life insurance to cover your remaining mortgage debt should you die before the payment term has ended.

It is also possible to buy a critical illness policy, but this will only pay out if you fall ill with a serious illness covered by the policy.

Mortgage Payment insurance can be taken out to cover you for illness and loss of work. These should cover all or part of your monthly mortgage instalments should you be unable to pay due to accident, illness or redundancy.

Mortgage protection policies are priced per £100 of cover, which makes them easy to compare: a policy that costs £8 per £100 of cover should obviously have more benefits than a policy that costs £5 per £100.