mortgage protection

Hi,
    please could anyone enlighten me as to whether spanish banks do mortgage protection like at home or if it is possible to take out mortgage protection in this country for a spanish property if they don`t.
                                                many thanks
                                        Richie

Over ere you can specify an amount you wish to be paid in te event of unemployent, long term sicknesss, etc. So long as you make sure you specify enough to make your mortgage payments and other commitments over here, they don't normally ask too many questions. Do read the small print though!!!

As mark said,read the small print, most banks will only offfer 50% cover to each partner so in essence if one of you passes away the other will still have 50% to find.
Most of the time you will have to ask to increase this to a full 100% per partner.
This is a idiosyncracy of the Spanish family system although married each person in a Spanish marital sytem is considered individually.
Other than that you can get exactly the same mortgage cover here as in the UK.

georgie, what about if you run your own business in spain. i am ltd in uk but as 100% shareholder effectively self employed in insurance eyes therefore cannot claim for redundancy or illness

Hi ALAMRED,
I would imagine youwould still be able to do this,i am in pretty much the same situation as you as i own a company but am autonomous(self employes).
I have full 100% cover on my mortgage.
Smiley is the man to ask about this to be sure,at the moment the banks are making up the rules as they go along.
It might be woth dropping smiley a PM.
Kind Regards
Georgia

Hi Alamred,

Banks (not all!) do offer this in Spain, in fact I know of at least one lender that will insist on it! You do not say if you already have a mortgage in Spain and / or if so who with but generally the lenders that do offer this only do so against their mortgage products. I know Bankinter, for instance provide mortgage protection insurance through General Electric Financial Insurance, but again only for their mortgage products.

If you do already have a mortgage or in the midst of obtaining one I would recommend you speak to the lender and impress the point re self employment, given the restriction in a UK policy.  Also ensure that any policy document you obtain is also issued in English - so you can study that 'small print'!

Hi to cover one or two points regarding mortgage protection. There are two products deemed to be mortgage protection  - one is life cover and the other is protection against loss of income. I think Georgia is referring to life assurance mortgage protection (not the type of ASU that you can get in the UK) - forgive me if I am wrong Sean. I am not sure that ASU offered by Spanish lenders (even those that insist on it) covers non residents - EXAMINE the small print - and finally Marksfish - by law in the Uk I believe  you cannot protect  loss of income for anything in excess of 125% of mortgage related payments and mortgage related insurances. Certainly the last time I checked (about 3 years ago I think when i was doing some CPD studying). Then again I am out of touch with exact UK regulation now but i doubt the following philosophy has changed. The idea is that you are not incentivised to engineer a redundancy - you cannot cover things like "other commitments" it is simply supposed to protect mortgage payments plus any associated insurances - plus the discretionary 25% - although I wouldnt mind betting many providers are currently revising terms for new business - that tends to be the way with many insurance companies - happy to protect you until you need the protection - or maybe i am just being too cynical. As Alamred says UK ASU does not cover against redundancy if you are self employed - understandable really - I think however most of the reputable providers in the UK will protect against accident or illness but as with all insurers you will have to corroborate the validity of the claim and prove you are genuinely ill or have had an accident.

Grandslam you would have to speak to a Uk insurer to establish if you can arrange something there to cover a mortgage here - however I suspect the answer will be negative - they expect a great deal of corroboration if yoy are claiming on a UK policy on a UK mortgage - not sure they would want the aggro of having to corroborate a mortgage for Spain - the idea is that it is not an income replacement scheme - it is merely a protection for your mortgage so they want to know that is how any claim proceeds are being utilized.

Smiley, used to run my own IFA practice until the gestapo at canary wharf (financial services authority to the uniniated) convinced me to look for new career.
when i was down in costa del sol a while back i was talking to someone about health cover schemes which seem to incorporate insurances tacked on along side.

as I intend to move to spain fully  and become resident do you know if there are schemes like the cash plans in uk & other health xare schemes - which offer an collective of insured risk.

so for example you may insure yourself with one company for health care, life assurance and accident cover, thereby reducing overall cost.

obviously for anyone looking in, qulaity of cover is the ost important part here and just becuase a company is cheaper if you get inferuior cover it is better paying more if you can.

but not sure if those type of plans hitting spain yet?

Havent done a great deal of research into it to be honest but I have an idea that Allianz did have a product for ex pats that was all encompassing. Guess it really depends on what you want it for but I have a feeling they were more income protection rather than lump sum as per a CIC policy in the UK. If you want to PM me your e mail address I can have a word with a couple of gen ins brokers here and see if they can help.

Dependant upon one,s residency you may wish to resaearch Skandia Internationals, products.