Helped by an increase in the amount of bulk primary new mortgage insurance written, September was the best month of the year for the private mortgage insurers.According to the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America, the member companies of the trade group wrote $23.9 billion of primary new insurance during the month, up 7.7% from $22.2 billion in August. In September 2004, the total was $19.2 billion. However, the mortgage insurers wrote less traditional primary new insurance in September. In August, these firms did almost $16 billion in such business, but it fell to $14.7 billion in September. Bulk insurance increased from $6.2 billion to $9.2 billion. Application volume decreased slightly, from 156,899 in August to 156,630 in September. New pool risk written rose from a revised figure of $40.6 million in August to $81.8 million the following month. September's cure/default ratio, after improving in August, fell back to 72.1%. There were 32,221 cures and 44,711 defaults during the month. MICA can be found online at http://www.micanews.com.
