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What happens to your house if your worst financial nightmare comes true and you suddenly lose your job?
Who makes your mortgage payments when you have no paycheck for months on end?
Do you have enough savings to cover the mortgage for six months or more?
Two years of intensive consumer polling and focus-group research by some of the largest players in the American mortgage and insurance industries have documented deep-seated fears among homeowners about financial meltdowns triggered by unexpected job loss.
Many families save little or nothing. They are stretched to the limit just paying for the mortgage, cars, credit cards, food and education. If the main breadwinner lost his or her job, the house would be in jeopardy within a handful of months.
How to deal with that eventuality - and keep people in their homes even when they have no money coming in? One answer is about to come from General Electric: a plan that functions as an unemployment insurance policy attached to your mortgage.
GE later this month is expected to unveil a new "job loss mortgage protection" plan that makes home loan payments of up to $5,000 a month for as long...