Playbook, mortgage broker
The cover a lender insists on, and the cover that is a second appointment
Two entirely different things get asked about in the same breath here. Buildings cover is not really an insurance question at all, it is a condition the lender attaches to the loan with a point in the transaction by which it has to be in place. Life and critical illness cover is a separate regulated product, sold in its own right with its own suitability work, which is why it is a second appointment rather than an item on the mortgage call. Confusing the two is the characteristic failure of a page like this.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for insurance and coverage holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Buildings cover is a lender requirement rather than a choice, and it has to be in force by a defined point in the transaction, which makes it a deadline question sitting inside an insurance one.
- Life and critical illness cover is a separate regulated sale with its own advice process, so a protection conversation is a second appointment and cannot be tacked onto the end of a mortgage call as an extra.
- A leasehold flat is usually insured by the freeholder under a block policy, so the buildings answer changes entirely with the tenure, and a buyer who arranges their own has paid for something twice over.
- Applicants use payment protection, income protection and life cover interchangeably, so a page that answers the phrase rather than the product will confidently answer the wrong question.
How it arrives
- do i have to have buildings insurance for a mortgage
- when does the buildings cover have to start
- do i need life insurance to get a mortgage
- we are buying a flat so who insures the building
- do you arrange insurance as well as mortgages
- is critical illness cover part of the mortgage
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The lender's buildings requirement and the point it bites | That cover has to be in place by a stage of the transaction rather than by moving day, and what the client has to do about it. Written as a deadline, because that is how it goes wrong and it goes wrong late. |
|---|---|
| How the answer changes on a leasehold flat | That the building is generally insured by the freeholder and what the buyer needs instead. Keep this on its own so the assistant does not tell a flat buyer to arrange a policy they do not need. |
| What your protection service is, and that it is a separate appointment | What it covers, how it is arranged and that it involves its own advice. Say plainly that it is a separate conversation, since clients otherwise expect it bundled and feel sold to when it is not. |
| The product names your clients confuse, set out side by side | Life cover, critical illness, income protection and anything else you arrange, in one short comparison. The assistant needs this to work out which product a loose phrase is aiming at before it answers anything. |
The reply
Those are two different things. Buildings cover is a condition your lender attaches to the mortgage, and it has to be in place by a point in the transaction rather than on the day you move, so it is worth sorting early [1]. If you are buying a leasehold flat, the building is usually insured by the freeholder, so you may not need your own buildings policy at all [2]. Life and critical illness cover is a separate product with its own advice appointment, and it is not required in order to get a mortgage. I cannot tell you what cover you need or what it would cost. Leave your name and an email and an adviser will pick it up with you.
Splitting the two in the first line is the whole job, because the visitor asked one question that contains two. The leasehold sentence is there because it saves somebody buying a policy they do not need and almost nobody knows it. Saying life cover is not required removes the suspicion that a broker is attaching a sale to the mortgage, which is the unspoken half of the question.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks whether they need a particular cover, how much they should have, what it would cost, or whether an existing policy is enough.
That is an advice question and it needs somebody who can look at your circumstances properly. I cannot tell you what you need or what it would cost. Leave your name and an email and an adviser will talk it through.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say somebody does or does not need a particular cover, which is advice on a regulated product and a recommendation the assistant is in no position to make.
- Never state that a policy would pay out in a given situation, since that sits in the policy wording and in an insurer's decision on a claim.
- Never say life cover is required in order to get a mortgage, which is untrue and turns a separate product into something that feels forced.
- Never quote a sum assured, a term or a premium, none of which exist before an application and an assessment.
Questions
- Can it recommend a level of life cover based on the loan?
- No, and it should not attempt an arithmetic version of it either. Matching cover to a loan looks like a calculation and is a recommendation, which needs an adviser and a suitability assessment. The assistant explains what the product is and hands over.
- Our protection sales come from the mortgage conversation. Does this cost us any?
- It should not, because the material can say plainly that the firm arranges it and that it is a separate appointment. What loses the sale is an applicant who thinks they are being upsold during a mortgage call, and an honest description in advance is what prevents that.
- Should it answer questions about a policy somebody already has?
- Only about the shape of the products, never about their policy. It has no sight of a schedule, cannot tell whether a policy is in force and must not say whether existing cover is enough, which is a judgement on a document it has not read.
Keep reading
- Everything for a mortgage brokerProcess, documents and fees are safe to automate. Rates go stale fast and affordability cannot be answered generically.
- Handling insurance and coverage in generalWhether something is covered turns on the policy wording, so the assistant explains process and never adjudicates. Claims have to reach a person fast.
- Money paid on a mortgage case that went nowhereA down valuation, a decline or a collapsed chain. Whether money comes back depends which fee it was and whether the firm ever held it.
- The upload link has stopped working and the case is waiting on itExpired upload links, joint applicants sharing one login, and a portal that holds what was sent rather than what the lender has decided.
- The question every applicant asks, and the one nothing here can seeThe most asked question on a broker's site is the one with no visible answer. Publish what each stage waits on instead of a status.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.