If the recent announcements by CMHC regarding mortgage insurance underwriting requirements has caused concern, Toronto Dominion has announced that TD Conventional Lending Policies as well as TD High Ratio Mortgage policies insured by Genworth Canada and Canada Guaranty remain unchanged.

What exactly does this mean and how does it affect you as a borrower? First off, it means that any applications that do not meet the CMHC’s new underwriting guidelines will automatically be routed to one of the other High Ratio Mortgage insurers. Both Canada Guaranty and Genworth Canada have made it quite clear that they are comfortable with their current underwriting policies. So, anyone who needs to have an insured mortgage and qualifies will find the required mortgage insurance.

To summarize, the borrower has nothing to do and the lender will take care of routing the application to the appropriate insurer – what they did anyhow as while brokers can request an insurer the choice of insurer is generally up to the lender. Most important of all, these changes will have no impact on application acceptance, amount that can be borrowed or the timing of a purchase.

It has been noted that by many in the industry that CMHC has a more pessimistic outlook on the economy than the majority of the financial industry and fortunately for borrowers Genworth Canada and Canada Guaranty do not share the same outlook.