You're not legally required to get insurance for a mortgage. But you won't have much luck finding a lender who will lend to you if you don't. I'd be surprised if this wasn't equally the case in most other countries.
That's only true if you're putting down less than 20%. Once you're over 20% lenders don't care. I recently put 50% down on a house and did not have to get insurance. The lender said it was one of the cleanest loans they've ever done.
Is that true for homeowner's insurance? As far as I know, the 20% rule is for private mortgage insurance (PMI), which pays to the lender if you fail to make your payments. Basically an added payment because with a low down-payment, you're seen as an extra risk of default that must be insured separately.
Sorry, I meant PMI, not homeowner's insurance. The GP said "mortgage insurance" and that's what I was referring to. I absolutely have and was required to obtain homeowner's insurance to get a loan.
Don't know if that's true all the way around, put down more than 20% and had to have multiple very specific types of coverage, and they needed proof every year that the policies were renewed. Every year I held the mortgage, I got a nastygram because their system didn't do the auto-checks at the right time. Could be specific to type of home/location, though.
