Fewer home loans were insured last month at MGIC Guaranty Insurance Corp. Loan performance, however, continued a two-year run of improvement.
The Milwaukee-based mortgage insurance company wrote $2.9 billion in new insurance during August, according to monthly operational data released Monday.
Business slowed from the previous month, when $3.2 billion in residential loans were insured.
In the same month last year, business totaled $2.5 billion.
MGIC insured $20.6 billion in mortgages during the first eight months of 2013.
The ending primary delinquent inventory fell to 113,328 units from 115,755 as of July 31. A year earlier, the total was 150,388.
The number of past-due policies has been lower each month since August 2011, when the delinquent inventory was 183,338.
Using estimated insurance in force of 968,690 policies as of Aug. 31, estimated delinquency fell to 11.70 percent from 11.90 percent as of the end of July.
At the same point last year, estimated delinquency was 14.57 percent.