What is Mortgage Default Insurance?
This is an insurance policy helping lenders to be able to lend money to people who needs financing but not eligible enough for institutional financing, like they do not have enough saving to put as the down payment required but institutional lenders.
If the borrower defaults on payments the insurance company will pay the remaining balance of the mortgage back to the lender.
If you can not pay enough down payment for the property you looking for here you can find an estimation of how much you need to pay for the default insurance.
Click Here for Mortgage Default Insurance Calculator

Why I need to pay for this?

If you do not have enough saving for down payment the lender needs to apply for mortgage default insurance to secure the loan and he/she will charge you for that.
The lender usually add the default insurance amount to the mortgage so most of the time it will be seamless unless you want to pay the lender the amount in cash.
If the borrower goes on default then the insurance company will pay the remaining of the loan/mortgage back to the lender. It's important to know that the insurance company will not pay the borrower it will only pay the lender.

The default insurance companies available in Canada are CMHC, Genworth and Canada Warranty
Serving Mortgage / Loan Industry in Greater Toronto Area (GTA) - Canada