Guide · 21 March 2025
The Protection Gap After You Remortgage
A lower monthly mortgage payment does not always mean your life cover still matches the outstanding balance or family needs.
Remortgaging often focuses on rate and term. Life cover and critical illness policies attached to the previous deal can drift out of date — either overshooting a smaller balance or leaving a shortfall if the new term is longer.
We ask clients to bring policy schedules alongside the new mortgage offer. Decreasing-term cover may already track the balance; level cover may not. Income protection, if held at all, rarely updates automatically when household costs change.
A protection needs assessment is not a sales script. It is a checklist against mortgage debt, childcare costs, and the income a surviving partner would actually need. Sometimes the answer is to keep existing cover; sometimes a top-up or rewrite is clearer.
Reviewing after remortgage — rather than waiting for a claim — keeps the conversation grounded in numbers you already have.