Mortgage Insurers Receive Highest Level of Applications in Six Months

The members of the Mortgage Insurance Cos. of America received 43,278 new applications for private mortgage insurance during March, the most since last October. In February, they received 36,793 and in March 2012, they received 32,540.

MICA membership consists of only three of the industry’s active underwriters: Radian, MGIC and Genworth. United Guaranty, which has been battling with Radian for the No. 1 position by amount of new insurance written, new players Essent and National MI, along with CMG, a joint venture of PMI/CUNA Mutual which is being sold to Arch, are not members of the group. The three companies in run-off, Triad, RMIC and PMI, are also not members.

Typically NIW lags application volume. In March, the three companies had $10 billion in NIW, up from $9.2 billion in February but behind January’s $10.4 billion. For March 2012, MICA members had NIW of $6.7 billion.

Meanwhile primary insurance-in-force now has increased for nine consecutive months, and at the end of March stood at $402.1 billion, compared with $401.3 billion in February.

The cure/default ratio for March is 138.5%, with 23,953 cures and 17,289 new notices of default. This continues the pattern established in the last few years where in both February and March there are more cures than new defaults.