of years before the naturally amortized loan would have put us there. When we called to have the mortgage insurance removed they said that they look at when you'd hit 20% if you never paid any extra and that is the date they remove the insurance. They don't care if you get their earlier like we did. We argued with them because we were told when we purchased our home that we could pay extra to arrive at 20% earlier to get rid of the insurance. It was like a punch to the gut hearing that we couldn't. We stuck it out instead of refinancing because our interest rate is so low that we made out better in the long run to keep the loan and pay the insurance a while longer.