Mortgage Insurers Finish Rough Year

Private mortgage insurance companies finished 2008 with the second worst month of the year in terms of primary new insurance written and its worst month of the year in terms of the cure/default ratio. And December's numbers included information from a company which hadn't reported in almost five and one half years. According to the Mortgage Insurance Cos. of America, in December, the private mortgage insurers had $7.2 billion of primary new insurance written, all but $28.4 million through the traditional channel. The December statistics included data from Radian Guaranty Inc., Philadelphia, which recently rejoined the group after leaving in a dispute over its title insurance alternative in July 2003. In November, MICA members had volume of $5.8 billion, while, in December 2007, they had volume of $26 billion. The inclusion of Radian in the data has brought the primary insurance in force up to $952.2 billion; without Radian and Triad Guaranty, which is in runoff, this was $799.5 billion in November. New pool risk written was $8.1 million, the best month of the fourth quarter. The cure/default ratio crashed to 47.3%, with 49,749 cures and 105,110 defaults reported.