LIF Failover conditions

Hello

I'm trying to confirm the conditions that will initiate a LIF failover.  Aside from a whole node going down, will a LIF only failover if there is a link loss?

If that's the case, is there any other options I can employ to protect against the upstream switch failing but NOT taking a port offline?  I can't use LACP across two switches in this environmment.

Thanks

Steven