New MI Plunged in April

The amount of primary new private mortgage insurance written in April totaled $30.9 billion, down 29% from March's record $43.3 billion, according to the Mortgage Insurance Cos. of America.For traditional primary new insurance written, April's $26.4 billion was down only 7% from March's $28.3 billion. The biggest reason for the drop was a near 70% falloff in the volume of bulk new insurance, from just under $15 billion in March to $4.5 billion one month later. Application volume dropped only slightly, around 6%, to 309,509 in April -- still the second-best month under MICA's revised data definitions. New pool risk written was $1.1 billion, up over 200% from March's $370.3 million. For the third consecutive month, cures topped defaults, 46,882 vs. 45,098, for a ratio of 104.0%. MICA can be found online at http://www.micanews.com.