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%).
- Customize which insurance types count toward your payment. When you opened it
from a Record, look for "Coverage included in this estimate" in the Home insurance card — one switch per priced coverage type (Flood, Wind, Wildfire, Earthquake), grouped by how urgent each one is for this property's own hazard level: coverage the property's hazard reads as typically required (high hazard or a standing requirement — flood in a mapped flood zone, hurricane-designated wind, high-wildfire/WUI fire) comes first; everything else sits under "Optional add-ons" below it, badged Recommended (moderate hazard — worth carrying, still optional) or Nice to have (low hazard — shown for completeness) so you can tell the two apart at a glance, plus "Included above" when a line is already counted in your total even though it isn't required. Flip any switch off to see your payment without that coverage, or on to add it — including coverage that's typically required, if you want to model going without it. The homeowners base itself isn't a switch — it's always part of the payment. 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.
- 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
Do this next
Found a payment that works? Look up the property in full, or shortlist homes that fit the budget you just modeled.