Monthly business picked up last month for private mortgage insurance companies and was likely higher during September. At the same time, mortgage insurance defaults were lower. Both metrics were better than 12 months ago.
August saw 32,215 policies written by members of the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America, more than 26,266 in July. Last month was also better than a year earlier, when the group issued 25,183 policies.
In terms of dollar volume, $6.4 billion in policies were written during August. Mortgage insurers wrote $5.8 billion in policies the month before and during the same month last year.
So far this year, MICA members have sold 187,613 policies for $40.1 billion.
The report reflected data collected from Genworth Mortgage Insurance Corp., Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp., PMI Mortgage Insurance Co., Radian Guaranty Inc., Republic Mortgage Insurance Co. and United Guaranty Corp.
Applications in the pipeline were also strong. Last month’s activity climbed to 39,503 applications from 32,829 in July.
The Aug. 31 primary insurance in force was $780.3 billion, falling from $787.8 billion on July 31 and $900.8 billion on Aug. 31, 2009.
An improvement was noted with primary insurance defaults, which fell to 63,882 from July’s 68,862. Defaults were much higher a year ago at 91,854.
Primary insurance cures rose to 58,094 from 56,086 in July. MICA reported 52,939 cures for August 2009.
