With an FHA loan, you pay insurance for 11 years if you put down 10%. Mortgage insurance stays for the life of the loan if you put down less than 10%, but you could get rid of MIP by refinancing your loan once you have sufficient equity. For conventional loans, you could request to remove mortgage insurance when your mortgage balance decreases to 80% of the home’s value. It may also be automatically removed when your loan balance drops to 78%.