MICA Reports Best Month of Year for Private MI

If the mortgage market is slowing down, it can't be seen from the monthly data provided by the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America.In August, the member companies of MICA (every private mortgage insurance company except Radian) had their best month of the year in terms of traditional primary new insurance written and the third-best month in terms of new applications received. And while the cure/default ratio was very low, it was the first time it has improved since February. In August, mortgage insurers wrote $27.3 billion of total primary new insurance, up 2.6% from July's $26.6 billion. Of that total, $23.8 billion was in the traditional category. For the third time in the past four months, applications received topped 200,000. In August, there were 206,445 new applications, up 14.3% over the total in July. New pool risk written fell from $239.6 million to just $29.5 million. The cure default ratio was 57.9%, up from 53.4%, with 33,811 cures and 58,441 defaults.