Private MI Drops

The six member companies of the Mortgage Insurance Cos. of America had their third-worst month of the year in terms of primary new insurance written in October.Data collected by MICA shows that these companies (all the private mortgage insurers except Radian) wrote $17.6 billion in new insurance, down from $19.2 billion in September and $30.6 billion in October 2003. Application volume was also at its third-lowest level for the year, at 142,087. October 2003 was the last boom month for the MIs, with application volume of 233,393. New pool risk written in October totaled $21.6 million, down from $66.1 million in September and $636.2 million in October 2003. Defaults once again outnumbered cures, for the eighth time in the first 10 months of the year. The cure/default ratio was 73.9%, with 33,532 cures and 45,353 defaults. MICA can be found online at http://www.micanews.com.