MICA: Defaults Jumped in April

The number of defaults reported for April by the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America totaled 73,880, compared with 58,131 in March, causing the cure/default ratio to drop from 87.0% to 53.6%. Cures totaled 39,584 in April. MICA officials said the increase in defaults results from an unnamed major lender's change in how it records delinquencies and is a one-time event. The April default statistic includes both newly reported defaults as well as previously unreported defaults for the lender. "Overall, the market is returning to fundamentals," said MICA executive vice president Suzanne C. Hutchinson. "The year-over-year increase of 11.7% in [traditional] new insurance written reflects that return to quality in the marketplace." The dollar volume of primary new insurance written fell from $20.5 billion in March to $19.8 billion in April. The traditional category accounted for $19.4 billion of the total, compared with $20.3 billion in March and $17.4 billion in April 2007. Application volume totaled just 128,243, the lowest since February 2007, when it stood at 123,059.