Primary MI Drops

Total primary mortgage insurance written by the members of the Mortgage Insurance Cos. of America totaled $30.6 billion in October, down 16.5% from September's $36.7 billion.It was the eighth consecutive month in which the industry has written over $30 billion in primary new insurance. In October 2002, it wrote $27.6 billion. Since July 2003 the data reported by MICA do not include Radian Guaranty Inc., the Philadelphia-based company that is no longer a member of the trade group. By type, $22.3 billion of traditional mortgage insurance and $8.3 of bulk insurance was written in October. Application volume fell 2.4%, declining from 239,168 in September to 233,393 in October. This represents over 100,000 fewer applications than were received in June, when volume peaked at 334,385. New pool risk written in October totaled $636.2 million, up from $605.0 million in September. The cure/default ratio remained virtually unchanged from September, at 87.1%. There were 37,742 cures and 43,309 defaults in October. MICA can be found online at http://www.micanews.org.