Private MI Demand Drops to New Low

The dollar volume of primary new mortgage insurance written in January was lower than any month in 2009, according to the Mortgage Insurance Cos. of America. Only $4.16 billion of new insurance was written in January. The worst month in 2009 was the $4.76 billion written in October. For the fourth consecutive month the number of new applications received has declined. There were only 19,438 applications for the month, down from 26,284 in December (the lowest in 2009) and 75,614 in January 2009 (the best month in this category last year). The amount of primary insurance-in-force among the private MIs continued to slide. In January 2009 it was $949.3 billion. By December it fell to $863.4 billion and at the end of January 2010, it was $851 billion. The cure/default ratio for January 2010 was 62%, with 61,195 cures and 98,685 defaults. This is the highest number of defaults since January 2009's 106,482.