💸 Bank Loyalty Penalty Score™

Your bank charges you
for staying loyal.

The average borrower who doesn't shop rates pays $47,000 more over 30 years. What's your penalty?

$47K
Avg loyalty penalty
0.8%
Avg rate gap
6.3
Years of extra work
Calculate Your Penalty
The rate you're actually paying right now
Check Bankrate or ask 2-3 lenders for a quote
Current outstanding mortgage balance
Used to calculate years of your life spent on the penalty
Your Bank Loyalty Penalty™
$0
Penalty Score
Grade
Years of Your Life
Monthly Overpayment
💸 Your Penalty Breakdown
Monthly overpayment
Annual penalty
Already paid (loyalty tax)
Still left to pay
Total loyalty penalty
🌍 What You Could Do With This Money Instead
✈️
That's round-trip flights to Europe ($800 each)
🎓
years of in-state university tuition ($12K/yr)
🌴
family vacations at $5,000 each
📈
Invested at 7% return: by retirement
years earlier retirement (at $70K/yr spending)
See What Rate You Actually Qualify For → Full Mortgage Calculator

Not financial advice. Calculations based on standard amortization formulas using the rate difference provided. Actual savings from refinancing depend on closing costs, credit score, and lender terms. Educational use only. FinanceRateCalc.com

📊 How This Works

We calculate the cost of staying with your current lender vs shopping the market. The penalty is the difference between your current rate and the best available rate for your profile, compounded over your remaining loan term.

📋 Assumptions & Data Sources

Best available rate based on 740+ credit score conventional loan. Penalty calculated over full remaining loan term. Does not account for refinancing costs. Educational use only — not financial advice.

Your Next Step
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Disclosure: FRC may earn a commission if you use this link — at no cost to you. This does not influence our data or analysis.

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🔍 Also explore: All FRC Tools · Lender Comparison · FHA by State · Lender Stress Index

The part almost nobody publishes free

Prices and rates are widely reported. Whether a lender says yes is not. In the complete 2025 federal record, denial rates across the 100 largest FHA lenders ran from 1.8% to 78.7% — same programme, same year.

And it is not simply who applies where: standardizing on state, loan amount, income, debt-to-income and loan-to-value, applicant mix explains only a 2.7× range in expected outcomes.

Which lenders approve most → Your metro → Denied? →

CFPB HMDA 2025, computed by FinanceRateCalc. Covers the highest-volume lenders published per market, not all lenders. Historical observations, not predictions. CC BY 4.0, not independently reproduced.

The Denial Dispatch
One finding a week from the federal mortgage record.
One chart, three paragraphs, every Saturday. Measured, not assumed.
Get the Dispatch →
AI Accuracy Index The Door Effect The Denial Map Open Data About Press Newsletter
FinanceRateCalc · Independent analysis of the complete federal HMDA record · Measured, not assumed. · No lender or AI vendor funds or previews this work.