President Donald Trump signed an executive order on October 22, 2026, that tells the Federal Housing Finance Agency to create a pilot program to cancel borrowers’ mortgage insurance premiums proactively. Under the order, homeowners would not have to ask for the premium to end. The pilot is an instruction to the agency, though, and nothing is running yet.
The White House fact sheet on the order, titled “Decreasing Housing Costs for the American People,” says the FHFA Director is to cancel premiums “proactively once they have satisfied their equity requirements.” The fact sheet names no start date, no list of eligible loans and no figure for what a borrower might save each month.
That leaves homeowners who pay mortgage insurance with nothing to sign up for today. What they can do is find out when cancellation is already allowed on their own loan. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says a servicer must grant a written request to cancel private mortgage insurance once the balance is scheduled to reach 80 percent of the home’s original value, if the borrower is current, certifies there is no second mortgage or other lien, and can show the home has not lost value. The date appears on the insurance disclosure form from closing.
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What the order tells FHFA to do
Only the FHFA is named in the mortgage insurance directive. The agency oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the fact sheet says were directed in January 2026 to buy $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities. That purchase is background, not part of the October order.
The same order directs the FHFA Director to expand the agency’s title insurance waiver pilot into a permanent program. The White House says that would let more borrowers use “cost-friendly alternatives to title insurance,” lowering closing costs when they refinance.
Two other directives sit alongside the pilot. The Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs are told to reduce interest rates on single-family home loans their departments make, with no rate or date given. The order also creates a Task Force on Manufactured Housing Innovation, co-chaired by the HUD Secretary and the FHFA Director, to push modern factory-building methods for homes eligible for federal programs.
How mortgage insurance ends today
The order does not change the rules that already apply. The CFPB explains that private mortgage insurance generally must end automatically on the date the principal balance is scheduled to reach 78 percent of the original value, as long as the borrower is current.
There is a backstop as well. The insurance must end the month after the midpoint of the loan’s amortization schedule, which is 15 years into a 30-year loan, even if the balance has not reached 78 percent. These rules cover single-family primary residences with loans closed on or after July 29, 1999, and the CFPB notes that FHA and VA loans follow different requirements.
“Original value” is generally the lower of the purchase price or the appraisal at purchase, and after a refinance it is the refinance appraisal. Loans backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac can allow earlier cancellation under investor guidelines, but never on terms worse for the borrower than the federal rules.
Which borrowers would the pilot reach?
That is the open question. The fact sheet does not say whether the pilot would cover loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, borrowers who have not yet reached 78 percent, or loans insured by other programs. It also does not say what “satisfied their equity requirements” would mean in practice, or how soon servicers would have to act.
The full text of the order is posted by the White House under its presidential actions, and the FHFA would have to announce the pilot’s terms before any borrower is affected. Until it does, the 80 percent request and the 78 percent automatic end remain the rules that decide when a premium stops.
For a retiree on a fixed income, the order is worth tracking because a monthly premium that ends sooner frees up cash. Right now, the only dependable move is to check the disclosure form and the servicer’s statement for the date the balance reaches 80 percent.
Still carrying a high housing bill while the pilot is on paper?
The mortgage insurance pilot has no start date, no eligible-loan list and no savings figure, so a homeowner’s monthly housing costs stay where they are today. Programs that lower other household bills have to be applied for, and many go unclaimed.
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More Financial Reading
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- 17 Medicare Money Moves Now That Part D Caps at $2,400
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
