Primary New MI Reaches YTD High

October was the best month of the year so far in terms of traditional primary new mortgage insurance written by members of the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America.However, because that same month was the worst in the bulk category since the trade group began releasing its statistics using the current format, overall production was down 9%. Primary new insurance written totaled $26.3 billion in October, down from $28.9 billion in September. The traditional channel's volume totaled $25.3 billion, compared with $23.1 billion in September. But the bulk channel had just $911.5 million in volume, down from September's $5.8 billion. Application volume increased from 168,073 in September to 183,560. New pool risk written fell from $55.1 million in September to $23.6 million. October's cure/default ratio was the lowest of the year so far, falling over five percentage points to 56.1%. There were 33,290 cures and 59,308 defaults. MICA can be found online at http://www.micanews.com.