Top MI Companies Release Financial Data

Essent Group Ltd. more than doubled their net income for Q1. According to data released by the company, the net income for Q1 2015 was $38.4 million or $0.38 per diluted share, compared to $15 million or $0.18 per diluted share for Q1 2014.

Essent also reported that the company had primary insurance in force of $53.3 billion and consolidated stockholders’ equity of $996.0 million as of March 31, 2015.

Essent is a Bermuda-based holding company that offers private mortgage insurance for single-family mortgage loans in the United States through its wholly-owned subsidiary Essent Guaranty, Inc.

“Our strong results reflect our continued execution on building a high credit quality and profitable mortgage insurance portfolio,” said Mark Casale, chairman and CEO of Essent. “Our outlook for the private mortgage insurance sector remains positive and Essent continues to be well positioned and optimistic about the future of our franchise.”

The management at Essent held a conference call this morning to discuss the company’s positive Q1 results. A recording of the call will be available for the next two weeks on their website.

Essent released the following stats as part of their announcement:

• Insurance in force as of March 31, 2015 was $53.3 billion, compared to $50.8 billion as of December 31, 2014 and $34.8 billion as of March 31, 2014.
• New insurance written for the first quarter was $5.3 billion, compared to $6.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014 and $3.6 billion in the first quarter of 2014.
• Net premiums earned for the first quarter were $75.0 million, compared to $67.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2014 and $44.8 million in the first quarter of 2014.
• The expense ratio for the first quarter was 36.6%, compared to 37.8% in the fourth quarter of 2014 and 52.4% in the first quarter of 2014.
• The percentage of loans in default as of March 31, 2015 was 0.21%, compared to 0.20% as of December 31, 2014 and 0.12% as of March 31, 2014.

Another company with new data was MGIC Investment Corporation. The company released their Operational Summary of its insurance subsidiaries for their primary mortgage insurance for April 2015. MGIC is a principal subsidiary of MGIC Investment Corporation. According to the summary, MGIC covers about one million mortgages and has $166.1 billion of primary insurance in force as of March 31, 2015.

As part of their monthly operating statistics, MGIC released the following stats:

• Primary New Insurance Written: $3.6 billion
• Beginning Primary Delinquent Inventory (# of loans): 72,236
• Ending Primary Delinquent Inventory (# of loans): 69,630