LMI Waivers: Which Professions Qualify, and When

An LMI waiver is a lender agreeing not to charge lenders mortgage insurance on a loan where it normally would. Without one, borrowing more than 80% of the value usually means paying it, and Moneysmart is blunt that the insurance protects the lender, not you. Several lenders waive it for people in particular professions, on the view that their incomes are steady and their default rates low.

Each lender keeps its own list. That’s the whole game.

What a waiver is worth

Here’s a hypothetical, using our LMI calculator and invented details. A buyer puts 10% down on a $1,000,000 unit and borrows $900,000. The calculator’s estimate of the premium is about $22,600. With a 5% deposit and a $950,000 loan it’s about $43,700, and that’s before the stamp duty some states charge on the premium itself.

The premium is usually added to the loan, so you pay interest on it for decades. A waiver removes it.

It also changes how soon you can buy. Staying hypothetical, on a $1,200,000 home a 20% deposit is $240,000 and a 5% deposit is $60,000, while NSW transfer duty of about $48,200 is due either way. For a registrar saving from a salary, that gap is years.

Doctors and dentists

Medical practitioners get the most generous treatment. When we checked on 11 October 2026, Westpac’s page offered GPs, specialists, dentists and hospital doctors a loan of up to 95% of the value without LMI and with no minimum income. That includes interns, residents and registrars, so the waiver can start in the first years after graduation. St.George, Bank of Melbourne and BankSA, which belong to the Westpac group, publish the same tiers and say self-employed and casual workers can apply, for a home or an investment.

Other lenders publish less: CommBank says doctors, lawyers and accountants may get a waiver with as little as a 10% deposit, and BOQ Specialist offers up to 90% without LMI to doctors, dentists, vets and accountants. Neither page lists every condition. Our home loans for doctors page shows how each lender’s published terms compare, with the date each was read.

The waiver is the easy part for a registrar. Rotating hospital contracts and overtime-heavy pay read differently to a credit team than a salary does, and the lender with the strongest waiver isn’t always the one most comfortable with that income, which is the part our doctors page goes into.

Nurses, physios and other allied health

This is where the lists split. Westpac’s healthcare page names fifteen allied-health professions for a waiver up to 90%, with a minimum income of $90,000 a year, checked 11 October 2026. The full list is audiologists, chiropractors, midwives, occupational therapists, optometrists, osteopaths, pharmacists, physiotherapists, podiatrists, psychologists, radiographers, registered nurses, sonographers, speech pathologists and vets. Enrolled nurses aren’t on it. NAB’s waiver page lists AHPRA-registered professions including optometrists, pharmacists and physiotherapists, but doesn’t publish the loan size or income it applies at.

ANZ goes the other way. Its customer fact sheet groups the waiver into accounting, legal and medical professionals, and it lists nurses, midwives, pharmacists and psychologists as not eligible, which we read on 11 October 2026. That sheet doesn’t publish a loan-to-value limit, so the terms come from ANZ at application.

So a nurse on $95,000 can get a waiver at one major and not at another. Pharmacists are the clearest case: Westpac and NAB list them, and ANZ’s sheet rules them out. Psychologists sit the same way at Westpac and ANZ. Below $90,000 Westpac’s tier is closed too, and the 5% Deposit Scheme or a guarantor usually does the work instead.

Accountants and lawyers

Westpac’s deposit page offers accountants who are members of CA ANZ, CPA Australia, the IPA, the CFA Institute or the Actuaries Institute, and lawyers with a current practising certificate, a waiver with a 10% deposit and a minimum income of $120,000. NAB names the same accounting bodies, along with barristers and solicitors, on its waiver page. Neither is a 95% product. For these professions the waiver usually stops at 90%. Membership of a financial planning body isn’t on either list.

What you’ll need to show

Expect to prove the profession first. For doctors and allied health that’s registration on the AHPRA public register, which a lender can check itself, and for accountants and lawyers it’s membership of a named body or a practising certificate. Then the usual income evidence follows: payslips and contracts, or business financials if you own a practice.

St.George’s page says its profession waiver can be used for a home or an investment, checked 11 October 2026. Not every lender’s does, and some waivers stop at owner-occupied lending, so ask before you assume. An investment loan at 95% is also a heavier holding cost than it was, because established homes bought after 7:30 pm on 12 May 2026 lose negative gearing against your salary from 1 July 2027. Our investment property calculator shows what that does week to week.

The catches

The policies are each lender’s own, and they change without notice. None of the pages we’ve quoted carries a date, which is why each line here says when we read it, and why we check them again on the day we apply.

The waiver is tested against the lender’s valuation, not your price. If the valuation comes in low, the LVR rises, and a loan you planned right at the waiver’s limit can land above it and outside the waiver. Then you need more deposit, or the premium comes back.

A waiver also isn’t a discount on the loan. The lender that waives the premium may not be the one with the sharpest rate for your loan size and situation, and over a long loan a higher rate can cost more than the premium it saved. Registration matters too. Lenders want proof of your registration with AHPRA or your professional body before they’ll apply the waiver. For registrars and new graduates, the income question is usually harder than the waiver itself.

It’s attached to the loan, not to you. Refinance above an 80% LVR to a lender that doesn’t waive it for your profession and you’d usually pay the premium then, so a waiver can quietly tie you to the lenders that offer one. That’s worth knowing before you chase a cheaper rate later, and it’s one reason we compare the waiver lender’s ongoing pricing, not only its opening rate.

Our view

Our view, which the lenders marketing these policies won’t share: a nurse or physio buying a first home under the price cap is often better off with the 5% Deposit Scheme than a waiver. The federal scheme has no income caps and no LMI, and it isn’t tied to one lender’s list. For doctors buying above the cap, or buying again, the waiver is usually the stronger route. A guarantor loan does a similar job with no profession test at all, at the cost of tying up a parent’s property. We run the numbers on all three before choosing.

Ansa handles most of our medical and allied-health clients, and checks the waiver against the rate and the cap scheme before picking a lender, not after. What we can’t do is make your profession eligible where a lender’s list leaves it out, or promise the policy will be the same next month. If you’re unsure where you sit, send us your registration and the deposit you have, and we’ll tell you which lenders will waive it.