You know how the auto insurer raises your premium after an accident? Something similar is happening to mortgage fees. They’re getting more expensive for a lot of people.

Many borrowers will be socked with a fee that amounts to $250 for every $100,000 borrowed, just because the mortgage market has gone so bad. Other customers will take bigger hits because their credit scores are lower than 680 and they’re borrowing more than 70 percent of the home’s value.

The fees will be tacked on to mortgages guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises that help keep money circulating for home loans. The companies say they introduced the new charges to compensate for the risks inherent in guaranteeing mortgages in an era when house prices are declining, delinquencies are rising and mortgage investors are losing money.

“It’s an ugly situation,” says Jim Sahnger, a mortgage consultant for Palm Beach Financial Network in Stuart, Fla. “It’s going to impact a lot of people.”

A quarter-point fee will affect just about everyone who gets a conforming mortgage — a home loan for $417,000 or less that’s not considered subprime and is not insured by the Federal Housing Administration. Additional fees will apply, depending on credit score, loan-to-value ratio and other factors. The riskier the loan, the pricier the fees.

The charges will be assessed on loans that are securitized after the end of February 2008. Because securitization takes time, some lenders started levying the fees in November. Soon, all lenders will pass along the new fees, either as closing costs or by charging higher interest rates.

For consumers, the new charges come at an awkward time. Credit scores often dive during and after the holiday shopping season because people run up their credit card balances. Maxing out a store charge card could cause someone’s credit score to dip below 680, subjecting the oblivious shopper to mortgage fees in the new year.

Everyone getting a mortgage securitized by Fannie and Freddie will pay a fee of a quarter point, or $250 for each $100,000 borrowed. Fannie calls it an “adverse market delivery charge.” Freddie calls it a “market condition delivery fee” that it is imposing “due to continued deterioration in the mortgage market.”

Other fees are added on top of the adverse market charge. These fees vary depending on credit score, loan-to-value ratio, whether there’s a piggyback loan and other factors. Someone with a credit score below 620 who makes a down payment of less than 30 percent will pay a fee of 2 percent of the loan amount — $2,000 for every $100,000 borrowed. The fee would be lower — 1.25 percent — for someone getting the same loan, but with a credit score of 640 to 659.

Lenders have the option of converting the fees into higher rates for customers who don’t want to pay the cash up front. In such a case, a 1-point fee — that is, a charge of 1 percent of the loan amount — generally translates into an increase of one-quarter of a percentage point on the rate. A borrower might have the option of paying a 1-point fee and getting a 6.25 percent rate, or paying no fee and getting a 6.5 percent rate.

But 4-to-1 conversion of points into rate is merely a rule of thumb. In some cases, a 1-point fee might turn into a half-point boost in the rate.

“It’s really hard to come up with a pat answer,” says Dan Dowling, president of United Mortgage Capital Corp., in Altamonte Springs, Fla. “But the bottom line of this is borrowers that represent greater risk are going to be paying a higher interest rate.”

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