Pull your most recent mortgage statement and find the insurance line item.
| PMI (conventional) | MIP (FHA) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who insures it | Private insurer | Federal Housing Administration |
| Upfront charge | Usually none | 1.75% of loan, financed at closing |
| Annual cost | 0.3% – 1.5% | 0.15% – 0.75% |
| Priced on | Credit score and down payment | Loan term, size, and down payment — not credit |
| Cancellable by request | Yes, at 80% LTV | Usually no |
| Automatic termination | 78% LTV of original value | Only with ≥10% down (11 years) |
| Governing rules | 12 U.S.C. §4901–4910 | HUD / FHA handbook |
You have real leverage here, and the law is explicit. You can request cancellation in writing once your balance reaches 80% of the home's original value. Your servicer must terminate it automatically at 78%. And under GSE servicing rules you can cancel based on your home's current value after appreciation — 75% LTV for loans 2–5 years old, 80% for older ones.
That third path is the one most homeowners never hear about, and after a few years of rising prices it's often the one that applies first. Details in our full removal guide.
FHA rules turn on when your case number was assigned and how much you put down.
That last category covers most FHA borrowers of the past decade. The good news is that once you have roughly 20% equity, a conventional refinance eliminates mortgage insurance entirely — see our FHA-to-conventional guide.
It depends on credit. FHA MIP isn't priced on your credit score, so borrowers with lower scores often pay less on FHA than they would in PMI on a conventional loan. Borrowers with strong credit usually pay less with conventional PMI — and gain the ability to cancel it, which over the life of a loan is frequently the larger saving.
The cancellability is the part people underweight at closing. A slightly cheaper premium that never ends can easily cost more than a slightly higher one you cancel in year four.
Only by refinancing from an FHA loan into a conventional one. If you have 20% equity, the conventional loan typically has no mortgage insurance at all — so you're not switching to PMI so much as eliminating insurance.
FHA recalculates the annual premium on the average outstanding balance each year, so it declines slowly. But it declines by pennies relative to what cancelling would save.
Partially, and only in narrow circumstances — generally if you refinance into another FHA loan within three years. Refinancing into a conventional loan does not refund it.
VA loans have no monthly mortgage insurance — only a one-time funding fee at closing. USDA loans carry an annual fee that for most post-2011 loans lasts the life of the loan, with refinancing as the exit.