NMIH Company Profile

NMI Holdings, Inc. (NMIH), a Delaware corporation incorporated in May 2011 provides private mortgage guaranty insurance (which we refer to as "mortgage insurance" or "MI") through its wholly owned insurance subsidiaries. Our primary insurance subsidiary, National Mortgage Insurance Corporation (NMIC), is a qualified MI provider on loans purchased by the GSEs and is licensed in all 50 states and D.C. to issue MI.

MI protects mortgage lenders from all or a portion of default-related losses on residential mortgage loans made to home buyers who generally make down payments of less than 20% of the homes purchase price. By protecting lenders and investors from credit losses, we help facilitate the availability of mortgages to prospective, primarily first-time, U.S. home buyers, thus promoting homeownership while protecting lenders and investors against potential losses related to a borrowers default. MI also facilitates the sale of these mortgage loans in the secondary mortgage market, most of which are sold to the GSEs. We are one of seven companies in the U.S. who offer MI. Our business strategy is to continue to gain market share with our principal focus on writing insurance on high quality, low down payment residential mortgages in the U.S.

The modern MI industry was established in the late 1950s to provide a private market alternative to federal government insurance programs, principally the FHA. The industry mitigates mortgage credit risk within the residential mortgage lending system, supports increased levels of homeownership, offers liquidity and process efficiencies for lenders and provides consumers with lower-cost products and increased choice of mortgage and homeownership options. Residential MI protects mortgage lenders and investors when borrowers default, by reducing and, in some instances, eliminating the resulting credit loss to the insured institution. By mitigating losses resulting from borrower defaults, mortgage insurance supports the origination of "low down payment" mortgages, which are mortgages to borrowers who make down payments of less than 20% of the value of the homes. Mortgage insurance also may reduce the capital that financial institutions are required to hold against insured loans and facilitates the sale of low down payment mortgage loans in the secondary mortgage market, primarily to the GSEs.

Mortgage origination, guaranty and securitization includes a range of private and government sponsored participants. Private industry participants include mortgage banks, mortgage brokers, commercial, regional and investment banks, savings institutions, credit unions, REITs, mortgage insurers and other financial institutions. Public participants include government agencies such as the FHA, VA and Ginnie Mae, and the GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The overall U.S. residential mortgage market encompasses both primary and secondary markets. The primary market consists of lenders that originate home loans to borrowers and includes loans made in connection with home purchases, which are referred to as purchase originations, and loans made to refinance existing mortgages, which are referred to as refinancing originations. The secondary market includes institutions that buy and sell mortgages in the form of whole loans or securitized assets, such as mortgage-backed securities.

To obtain mortgage insurance on a loan in our non-delegated channel, a lender submits an insurance application to us, along with documentation we require to support loan qualification for mortgage insurance. Our underwriters review the insurance application and all materials submitted to us and provide a decision to the lender prior to the loan closing.
In addition to our non-delegated underwriter employees located at our corporate headquarters and remotely across the country, we have entered into agreements with third-party underwriting service providers (USPs) under which they underwrite the mortgage insurance decision on certain loans for us, consistent with our underwriting guidelines and subject to the terms of the outsourcing agreements. Our USPs share in the daily underwriting of mortgage insurance applications submitted to us, depending on the volume and with targeted assignments of particular loans to particular USPs, to ensure timely response-times to lenders. These USPs use AXIS, our insurance management system, and are trained to follow the same process outlined above that our own employees follow when they render an insurance decision. Any underwriting decisions requiring escalation or a second review will be referred to management.

We have vendor management processes in place to manage the risk associated with outsourcing a component of our underwriting functions. In collaboration with the USPs management team, we monitor the USPs day-to-day underwriting of mortgage insurance decisions. We also review the qualifications of the USPs underwriters and provide system and guideline training to ensure the USPs underwriting philosophy is consistent with ours. We perform regular quality control reviews of each USPs performance, and our agreements with the USPs require them to give us access to the results of their internal quality control reviews. Underwriters with unacceptable performance will be carefully monitored with specific action plans, and our agreements provide for their timely replacement with 30 days notice.