Despite a quarter-over-quarter blip in new business at Arch Mortgage Insurance Co., annual activity more than doubled. Meanwhile, defaults declined.
The mortgage insurer wrote $2.575 billion in
new insurance on U.S. home loans during the three months ended Dec. 31, 2015.
The operating results, along with other financial data, were revealed by parent Arch Capital Group Ltd.
in its fourth-quarter 2015 earnings report.
Business slowed from the prior three-month period, when new insurance written amounted to $3.179 billion.
But activity doubled compared to the final quarter of 2014, when volume came in at $1.359 billion.
From Jan. 1 through Dec. 31 of last year, there was $10.271 billion in new insurance written, soaring from only $4.921 billion written during 2014.
Arch M.I. closed out 2015 with 148,943 policies in force for $27.101 billion.
The company’s book of business grew from 143,335 policies for $25.697 billion at the end of the third quarter and 131,111 policies for $22.402 billion at the end of 2014.
The default rate at the Walnut Creek, California-based company finished last year at 1.8 percent, lower than 1.9 percent three months earlier and 2.6 percent one year earlier.
Before income taxes, the parent company earned $39 million, sinking from $74 million in the third quarter and plummeting from $213 million in the fourth-quarter 2014.
