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A PITI calculator where the insurance line — the one most calculators guess as a flat percentage — is modeled per peril by the same engine your Record uses.
Who this is for: home buyers and sellers, agents, lenders, and insurance professionals — anyone sizing a real monthly payment or modeling one for a client. Where: Toolkit → Mortgage Payment Calculator, or /toolkit/mortgage-calculator. It also opens as a drawer inside the buyer Toolkit, and — the most accurate way in — from the "Model my mortgage payment" action on any Record's cost tile, which opens the full calculator in a modal over the Record, pre-filled for that property, so you can work the payment math while the risk and cost answer stay visible behind it. Time: ~2 min.
Steps
- Open the calculator. The insurance basis is set one of two ways, depending on how you got here:
- From a Record (most accurate) — click "Model my mortgage payment" on a Record's cost tile. The calculator opens in a modal, without leaving the Record, pre-filled with that property's price, state, and year, and models the premium from the property's own cached, per-peril risk profile (the peril sliders are hidden — it says "modeled from this property's assessed risk profile"). If the property hasn't been assessed yet, it says so and falls back to a generic estimate. Close the modal to return to exactly where you were in the Record.
- Manual peril toggles — opening the calculator on its own shows sliders to set flood / wind / fire / earthquake severity to none / moderate / high. (Manual toggles are capped at medium confidence, since they're not a full assessed profile.)
- Enter (or adjust) loan inputs: price, down payment, term, rate, property tax, HOA.
- Read the PITI breakdown — principal & interest, taxes, insurance (per-peril), HOA, and PMI (added automatically when the down payment is under 20%).
- See what's required, and choose what counts toward your payment. When you opened it from a Record, look for "Coverage included in this estimate" in the Home insurance card. Every line carries a label, so you can tell at a glance what a lender expects you to carry and what's your call:
- Required comes first. The homeowners base policy is always here — any mortgage lender requires it, so it's always part of your payment and has no switch. Below it are the other lines a lender typically requires for this property: the wind and wildfire share of that base policy when they're priced, and flood when the home is in a mapped flood zone. These start switched on.
- Optional add-ons sits below, each badged Recommended (this property's hazard reads elevated — worth carrying, still your choice), Nice to have (hazard reads low) or Optional. These start switched off, so your payment begins with just what's required.
Flip an add-on on to see your payment with that coverage, or flip a required line off to model going without it. This changes what's included, not how severely a peril is priced — severity still comes from the property's assessed risk (or, with no property, the manual peril sliders above, where setting a peril to "None" already removes it — that's why this switch list only appears for a property).
- Not sure why the insurance line is what it is? Click "Ask the Advisor to explain this & find ways to lower it" below the breakdown — it hands the Advisor the exact numbers you're looking at and asks it to explain the pricing and suggest ways to bring it down. No need to re-type anything, and no need to close the Record to see its answer — the Advisor stays visible on top of the Record while you keep working. Expect a short, plain-language answer (not a wall of headers and tables); when the calculator is opened for a real property, a "View the full Record & compare carriers" link is always there too, so you have a real next step regardless of what the Advisor says. Worth keeping? Click the bookmark icon in the conversation's header to save it as a note on that property — it shows up alongside your other notes on the property's Record, so the explanation doesn't disappear when you close the calculator.
Save & load scenarios
Click Save to store a scenario (label, inputs, perils, and the modeled monthly total, optionally linked to a property). Load or delete saved scenarios later to compare options side by side.
Why the insurance line matters
For a high-hazard property (coastal wind, wildfire, flood), the insurance line can be the difference between an affordable and an unaffordable payment. Because CoverGuard models it from real peril data instead of a flat 0.5%-of-price rule of thumb, your PITI is realistic.
The insurance line is a modeled estimate — use it to plan and compare, and confirm the actual premium with a carrier before closing.
Troubleshooting
- Insurance line seems low/high → check whether you opened it from a Record (accurate, modeled from that property's risk) vs. the manual toggles (capped confidence). Open it from a property's Record for the best estimate.
- The total jumped (or dropped) after I flipped a coverage switch → that's expected — turning a coverage type on or off in "Coverage included in this estimate" does exactly that, even for a switch labelled "typically required." Flip it back to compare with/without.
- Why does a coverage line say "Required" when its hazard looks low? → "Required" means a lender typically expects you to carry it, not that the hazard is high. Wind and wildfire are part of the base homeowners policy wherever they're priced, so they're required even at moderate hazard. Earthquake is never required, even where its hazard is high — it shows as Recommended instead.
- I don't see anywhere to customize coverage → that switch list only appears when you opened the calculator from a Record (it needs the property's real per-peril pricing); in manual mode, use the peril-severity buttons instead — set a peril to "None" to remove it from the estimate.
- Can't save a scenario → confirm you're signed in. See Account & login.
Do this next
Found a payment that works? Look up the property in full, or shortlist homes that fit the budget you just modeled.