Canada’s largest private mortgage insurer has released its third quarter results with net income of $128m, down 8% year-over-year but up 10% from the previous quarter.
Premiums earned of $169 million were relatively unchanged from a year earlier and down $2 million, or 1%, compared to Q2 2018 reflecting a relatively smaller recent books of business.
The loss ratio, as a percentage of premiums earned, for the quarter was 14% compared to 13% in the same quarter of 2017 and 14% in Q2 2018.
"We continue to enjoy solid business results this year, with another low loss ratio of 14% for the third quarter," said Stuart Levings, President and CEO. "While housing markets continue to normalize, they are generally well balanced, and employment remains strong, which is positive for our longer term business performance. As part of our ongoing focus on capital efficiency, we are pleased to have completed another $50 million share buyback under our normal course issuer bid during the quarter, underscoring our view that business fundamentals remain strong."
New insurance written from transactional insurance was $5.5 billion, a decrease of $0.1 billion, or 2%, compared to the same quarter in the prior year primarily due to a modestly smaller transactional mortgage originations market.
Premiums written from transactional insurance were $192 million. This represents a decrease of $3 million, or 1%, from the third quarter of 2017, primarily due to lower new insurance written.
Delinquencies lower
The number of delinquencies outstanding of 1,695 reflected a decrease of 64 delinquencies, as compared to the same quarter in the prior year, including decreases in Quebec (78), and the Pacific region (27). Compared to the prior quarter, the number of delinquencies outstanding decreased by 47, primarily due to decreases in Ontario (20), Quebec (19), and the Atlantic region (23).
