Mortgage insurers have improved their new business for five straight months now, though defaults have increased four months in a row.
July saw 50,575 mortgage insurance policies issued by members of the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America for $13.038 billion.
New business moved up from the previous month, when 49,666 home loans were insured for $12.291 billion.
In fact, dollar volume has increased each month since February, when $9.187 billion in new policies were written.
Historical data from MICA indicates that volume was 39,192 policies for $10.123 billion during the same month in 2012.
So far this year, the trade group’s members — Genworth Mortgage Insurance Corp., Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp. and Radian Guaranty Inc. — have insured 311,660 residential loans for $78.452 billion.
MGIC previously reported that new business in July was $3.2 billion, while Radian reported a record $5.3 billion in volume — suggesting that Genworth’s volume amounted to around $4.5 billion.
New M.I. applications for all three MICA members totaled 53,502 last month, inching up from 52,570 in June and pointing to sustained business volume in August.
MICA said its members had $413.022 billion primary insurance in force as of July 31, growing from $408.786 billion at the end of June.
One year prior, the total was $396.438 billion.
Association members saw 21,930 primary insurance defaults during the latest reporting period, up from 20,489 in June.
Defaults have risen each month since March, when MICA reported 17,298 primary insurance defaults, but were better than 25,166 in July 2012.
Primary insurance cures also increased, to 17,156 from 16,816 a month earlier and 18,430 a year earlier.
