CMHC publishes a specific premium rate for each loan-to-value band on owner-occupied homeowner loans of one to four units. As of this course's most recent review, the schedule runs: up to 65% LTV, 0.60% of the loan amount; 65.01% to 75% LTV, 1.70%; 75.01% to 80% LTV, 2.40%; 80.01% to 85% LTV, 2.80%; 85.01% to 90% LTV, 3.10%; and 90.01% to 95% LTV, 4.00% for a traditional down payment or 4.50% where the down payment came from a non-traditional, borrowed source.
These percentages apply to the loan amount, not the purchase price, and the premium is added to the mortgage principal rather than collected as a separate upfront cash payment in the ordinary case — meaning the borrower finances the premium itself over the life of the loan, paying interest on it along with everything else.
Non-owner-occupied small rental loans on two-to-four-unit properties sit on a different, higher schedule reflecting the added risk of a property the borrower will not live in: 1.45% up to 65% LTV, 2.00% from 65.01% to 75%, and 2.90% from 75.01% to 80%, the maximum LTV available on this program. Confusing the homeowner and small rental schedules is an easy mistake to make when quoting a premium quickly, and it produces a materially wrong number in either direction.
Two further charges apply on top of the base rate in specific circumstances. A blended amortization increase — where new money is added to an existing insured loan and the amortization is re-blended — carries a 0.60% surcharge applied to the increase in loan amount. Separately, an amortization extending beyond 25 years carries its own surcharge; for the 30-year amortization now available to first-time buyers and buyers of new builds, CMHC set this at 0.20%, effective for applications from 1 August 2024 onward. These surcharges apply to specific loan features, not automatically to every insured file, so check which ones are actually present before quoting a total premium.
This is the detail that separates insured from insurable in practice, not just in definition. On an insured file, the borrower pays the premium, financed into the mortgage as described above — this is the standard high-ratio purchase scenario. On an insurable file, the borrower has already put down 20% or more, so no insurance is required for the borrower to qualify; instead, if the deal otherwise fits insurer eligibility rules, the lender may choose to insure the mortgage on the back end, at the lender's own cost, purely to manage the lender's own portfolio risk and capital requirements. The borrower on an insurable file typically never sees a premium line item at all, because they are not the one paying it.
On an uninsurable file, no default insurance is available under any structure, so the lender carries the full risk itself and prices the rate accordingly — there is no premium to allocate to anyone because none exists on the transaction.
A borrower purchases with 25% down on a deal that otherwise fits insurer eligibility rules. Who, if anyone, pays a mortgage insurance premium?
At 25% down the file is insurable, not insured — the borrower has already cleared the 20% threshold, so no borrower-side premium is required. That does not mean insurance is irrelevant to the file: if the deal fits insurer rules, the lender can still insure it on the back end at the lender's own cost, for its own portfolio risk management. Saying insurance never applies above 20% down misses that back-end insurable category entirely, and there is no standard 50/50 split convention.
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