The cure/default ratio for the nation's private mortgage insurers was 112.2% in February, the first time there has been more new cures than defaults since May 2010, according to data collected by the Mortgage Insurance Cos. of America.
However the February report does not include any information from United Guaranty Corp., which stopped being a member of the organization on March 1.
A spokeswoman for UGC said as the industry is changing, its interests had become divergent from MICA and there are other avenues available for UGC to interact with customers and other industry participants. UGC is a subsidiary of AIG.
Earlier, both Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp. and Radian published data from February that showed their delinquent loan inventories had seen more cures than new notices of defaults.
For the month, MICA members reported 53,944 cures and 48,086 defaults. In January, including UGC, there were 50,820 cures and 64,687 defaults.
In February 2010, the cure/default ratio was 117.6%, the start of a four month streak where the industry had more cures than defaults. January's cure/default ratio was 78.6%.
The amount of primary new insurance written in February was $4.4 billion, with $77 million of it coming through the bulk channel.
Including UGC, MICA members did $3.6 billion in NIW in February 2010. In January, they did $6.4 billion.
Because UGC left the organization, there was a much larger than normal fall off in the amount of primary insurance in force. As of the end of February, there was $625.8 billion in force. One month prior, which includes UGC, there was $747.9 billion.
There was $5.4 million in new pool risk written in February, down from $5.6 million in January but up from $2.6 million in February 2010.
