Safe as houses

Homeowners are increasingly choosing not to protect their mortgage payments with a seemingly easy-to-arrange policy such as mortgage payment protection insurance (MPPI), which is designed to cover payments if mortgage borrowers lose their jobs through redundancy or illness. The Post Office's financial services arm recently published research showing that while, in 2003, 33% of new homeowners took out MPPI, in 2004, the figure had dropped to 27%, and in 2005, the figure fell down to 25%. While the figure has not quite halved, the drop is still significant. There are currently 2.45m policies...