New MI Up in March

Even though private mortgage insurers wrote over $1 billion less of traditional primary new insurance in March than they did a year earlier, total primary new insurance written increased by nearly $3.8 billion in the same period.According to the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America, its members did $20.98 billion of primary new insurance in March, compared with $15.28 billion in February and $17.18 billion in March 2005. March's volume was split between $11.95 billion of traditional insurance and $8.97 billion of bulk. Application volume increased almost 30% from February to March, from 108,788 to 141,117. New pool risk written totaled $76.7 million, up from $31.4 million in February and $30.3 million in March 2005. Primary risk in force stood at $141.6 billion at the end of the first quarter, up from $140.3 billion a year earlier, while pool risk in force at the end of the period was down to $8.5 billion, from $10.3 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2005. The cure/default ratio was 106.3% for March, with 40,299 cures and 37,928 defaults.