PMIs Have Worst Month in a Year

September was the worst month of the year so far in terms of dollar volume of primary new insurance written for the private mortgage insurance companies. According to data gathered by the Mortgage Insurance Cos. of America, there was just $4.8 billion of primary new insurance written, compared with a revised total of $5.8 billion in August; a statement from MICA said this includes HARP originations, but the group did not break out how many. Last September MICA members wrote $8.1 billion, but this does not include figures from Radian Guaranty Inc., whose data was not included in the group's statistics until December 2008. Since that month, the industry's primary insurance in force has declined from $952.2 billion down to $892.7 billion. New pool risk written was $4.7 million for September, while pool risk in force at the end of the third quarter was $7.9 billion, up from $7.0 billion for the same period one year prior. There was an improvement in the cure/default ratio, from 57.6% in August to 64.7% for September with 59,750 cures and 92,292 defaults during the month.