Free! 3 months mortgage cover
THE MIRROR - 12TH APRIL 2002
Single mum Geraldine Spooner could have lost her home – all because she slipped on the ice just outside her doorstep on Christmas Day 16 months ago.
Geraldine, a laboratory technician from Bocking in Essex, injured her back and couldn’t work for 10 months. And the DSS no longer helps people with their mortgage for the first nine months that they’re off work.
Fortunately Geraldine, 31, had taken out an accident, sickness and unemployment policy when she bought a two bedroom flat for herself and daughter Stacey, now seven, two years ago.
“It saved our home,” she says. “I had to live on my savings and the money my parents gave me. But without the insurance to meet the mortgage I would have lost everything.”
No fewer than 500,000 families have lost their homes in the past 10 years, mainly because illness or unemployment left them unable to work.
Like Geraldine, most could have taken out a mortgage payment protection insurance policy which would have met their mortgage for up to a year – long enough to get back on their feet again. Sadly, most borrowers don’t bother.
At one time there was some excuse because policies were expensive when dole queues were lengthening under the Tories. But the better jobs climate today has sent premium rates tumbling.
The Mirror has now teamed up with mortgage expert Simon Burgess to offer you Securityfirst, one of the cheapest policies around.
It offers three months’ free cover against unemployment or disability, after which it costs as little as £3.75 a month for each £100 of monthly mortgage payment covered. It will cover all employees in regular employment working at least 16 hours a week.
