Home loan insurer Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp. (MGIC) wrote $1.3 billion in new insurance contracts during the month of January, down from $1.4 billion in November.
Statistics for the month of December were not available, but heading into 2012, MGIC said the company wrote $4.2 billion in new insurance for the entire fourth quarter. The insurer expects new insurance contracting activity to be slightly higher in 2012 when compared to 2011 levels of $14.2 billion, which was up from $12.3 billion 2010.
For the 31-day period, the insurer saw its delinquent loan inventory fall from 175,839 at the beginning of the month to 174,418 loans by month’s end.
New notices on delinquent loans hit 13,700, but were offset by 10,662 loan cures, 3,967 paid loans and 292 rescissions and denials.
MGIC had $172.9 billion in primary mortgage insurance in force on 1.1 million mortgages at the end of December.
The company noted a trend of falling delinquencies in its fourth-quarter earnings report, but the firm’s bottom line suffered from mortgage defaults that occurred in previous periods.
The company also secured a deal with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance for the state of Wisconsin to continue writing new business outside the capital guidelines currently required in the state and by the government-sponsored enterprises.
The Milwaukee-based insurer posted a loss of $135.3 million, or 67 cents a share, for the three months ended Dec. 31. That compares to a loss of $186.7 million, or 93 cents a share, a year earlier. The percentage of delinquent mortgages, excluding bulk loans, insured by the firm fell from 14.94% in December 2010 to 13.79% in 2011. When including bulk loans, the delinquency rate represents 16.11% of the entire insured portfolio.
