The finance industry groups, which together represent the banks, finance companies, servicers and mortgage investors that make up the totality of the United States mortgage industry, want to give borrowers a three-month break from making mortgage payments — and possibly extend the break to 12 months — if the coronavirus crisis has reduced their income, sickened them or kept them from working.

The industry’s plan would let borrowers call or go online to temporarily freeze their payments and modify their loans with less paperwork than normal. It would not offer any forgiveness on the loans, which means the borrowers would eventually have to make up the lost payments, although they would have some flexibility in how they did so.

In return, the industry says, it needs comprehensive support from the government as soon as possible. That help could potentially include access to loans and liquidity programs provided by the Federal Reserve, which would require Congress to loosen rules governing the Fed’s emergency powers.

The industry groups said the most vulnerable companies were dozens of nonbank lenders, which sprouted up in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and make home loans that are often pooled by Ginnie Mae, a government-sponsored company that, unlike Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, does not help backstop mortgage servicers. The servicers are still required to make regular payments to mortgage investors if borrowers miss payments.

David H. Stevens, a housing official under President Barack Obama and a former chief executive of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said the industry needed the federal government to immediately mobilize a response bigger than what the Fed did to prop up the mortgage market during the 2008 crisis.