New MI Shatters '06 Record

Echoing what happened 12 months earlier, December 2006 was the best month of the year by far for the members of the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America in terms of primary new insurance written.The reason for that, as it was in December 2005, was that the dollar volume of bulk transactions topped the dollar volume of traditional transactions for the month. In fact, the $14.2 billion written in the bulk channel alone for December was more than any month written in the traditional channel during 2006 (with the exception of August). With $13.1 billion coming through the traditional channel in December, the $27.3 billion tops the $22.2 billion recorded in June. The worst month was January 2006, when volume totaled $13.6 billion. At the end of 2005, primary insurance in force totaled $668.4 billion, up from $615.1 billion a year earlier. New pool risk written in December totaled $413.7 million. The cure/default ratio reached its lowest level of the year, 68.6%, with 32,177 cures and 46,921 defaults reported.