Private Mortgage Insurers Report Improvements in March

""Mortgage Insurance Companies of America"":http://www.privatemi.com/index.cfm (MICA) reported a lift in business in March, with dollar volume rising both month-over-month and year-over-year.

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MICA member companies (""Genworth Mortgage Insurance Corporation"":http://mortgageinsurance.genworth.com/, ""Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation"":http://www.mgic.com/, and ""Radian Guaranty Inc."":http://www.radian.biz/page?name=HomePage) issued 40,893 certificates representing about $10.1 billion in March, the trade group reported. March's numbers are an improvement over February (which saw 34,665 policies issued for $9.2 billion in loans) and March 2012 (when companies wrote 30,080 policies for $6.7 billion in loans).

Member companies reported a total of $402.1 billion in primary insurance in force for the month.

At the same time, the number of private mortgage insurance applications received by MICA members totaled 43,278 in March, up from 36,793 in February and 32,540 in March 2012. March's application volume was the highest since last October, when MICA members reported receiving 46,045 applications.

The cure/default ratio spiked to 138.5 percent from February's 102.5 percent, with MICA recording 23,953 cures and 17,298 defaults.