A recent settlement tied to policies on agency loans helped pull down Radian Guaranty Inc.’s delinquency level. But new business backed off a recently established record.
Primary new insurance written during August amounted to $4.67 billion, according to monthly operating data released Monday.
Business stalled compared to the previous month, when Radian insured a record $5.29 billion in home loans.
But activity picked up from the same month in 2012, when the Philadelphia-based firm wrote $3.75 billion in new policies.
From Jan. 1 through Aug. 31, Radian wrote $34.31 billion in new insurance.
Radian’s primary delinquent inventory sank to 65,427 at the end of last month from 77,142 as of July 31 and 94,823 as of Aug. 31, 2012.
The month-over-month decline was expected following an agreement that the mortgage insurance company reached last month with Freddie Mac on 25,760 first mortgages that were delinquent as of Dec. 31, 2011.
“This agreement is an important step in resolving our remaining legacy risk, and reduces our total number of primary delinquent loans by 12.6 percent,” Radian Chief Executive Officer S.A. Ibrahim said in an announcement at the time.
Using an estimated 822,202 in total outstanding policies, Radian’s delinquency rate was an estimated 8.0 percent in August, sinking from an estimated 9.5 percent a month earlier and an estimated 12.8 percent a year earlier.
However, last month’s delinquency rate could change once the number of policies outstanding is adjusted to reflect the settlement with Freddie.