Restatement Cuts Full Year Loss for ORI

Old Republic International Corp., Chicago, lost $99 million for the full year 2009, a loss that would have been nearly $50 million greater except for the restatement of its third quarter results earlier this week. That restatement was done to conform to GAAP requirements on certain mortgage reinsurance contract terminations. ORI noted that substantially all of the premiums being recognized as income now will be likely absorbed by loss costs related to future years' risk exposures. In the fourth quarter, ORI lost $36.7 million. Its mortgage guaranty insurance business has a pretax operating loss of $126 million for the quarter and $486 million for the year. However, its title insurance business made $1.5 million for the quarter and $2.1million in 2009 on a pre-tax basis. The company also reported the fair value of its investments in competitors MGIC and PMI went from $82.7 million at the end of 2008 to $130.7 million at the end of last year. New insurance written by Republic Mortgage Insurance Co. was just $7.9 million for 2009, compared with $20.8 million in 2008 and a peak of $31.8 million in 2007. However, the title insurance business reported 358,935 direct orders opened in 2009, up from 257,743 in 2008.