Here's why: In New York State, if you let your car insurance lapse the department of motor vehicles will start fining you $8 per day per vehicle for every day you do not have car insurance. They will only do this for so long, then they will suspend your license and the vehicle registration. At that point, no one can put that vehicle on the road. No one! Once your license is suspended you can no longer drive to work, therfore making it even harder to pay your mortgage.

On the flip side, if you do not pay your mortgage; it generally takes about three years for a bank to foreclose on you these days. This gives you plenty of time to make up ground. Now I'm not suggesting you stop paying on your mortgage, but if you had to pay one or the other and could not pay both; it would be silly to lapse your car insurance (which is probably much lower than your mortgage payment.)