Milwaukee-based MGIC Investor Services Corporation, an affiliate of Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation (MGIC), has reported that DefenderTM, its interactive voice-response and web-response system, has handled its 1 millionth call and is reporting record-breaking call volume.
Defender is helping lenders to handle the overwhelming call volume stemming from the boom in refinancing activity. Defender prioritizes calls and frees up a lender's time to help customers with a high probability of prepayment. Despite heavy call volume, with Defender, calls are answered.
The Defender Call Index surged to nearly 300 in October, indicating that lenders are receiving nearly three times as many customer calls than they received in August.
Currently, eight mortgage lenders representing more than 6 million borrowers and $600 billion in mortgage loans are using the Defender system.
"With interest rates falling to their lowest point since October 1998, lenders are being swamped with calls and are contacting us with a heavy interest in Defender," said Mike Zimmerman, Vice President - Mortgage Banking Strategies, at MGIC's Capital Markets Group. "With the lenders that are in the implementation pipeline, Defender is managing nearly 11 million consumers or $1 trillion of residential servicing. Right now, lenders have one goal - answer the calls and keep the business. Defender is helping them do that."
MGIC will introduce a new version soon that will allow eligible consumers to lock in streamlined mortgages within Defender. The annual cost of the Defender system is based upon call volume, so the system is a variable cost instead of a fixed cost. And the system can be up and running in about 30 days.
Defender is powered by MGIC's proprietary Neural-Net Prepayment Model (NNPM), which predicts prepayment probability and produces prepayment speed estimates. NNPM identifies which borrowers are most likely to prepay their mortgages and produces a prepayment score that can be used to determine how calls are routed through Defender's SmartQueueTM system.
Customers most likely to prepay are moved to the top of Defender's queue, while customers less likely to prepay are provided access to "what if" payment calculators, as well as current rates and applicable online information. By design, Defender prioritizes the urgency of calls and determines which require immediate attention. All callers, however, are given the option of speaking with a loan representative.
MGIC Investment Corporation is the nation's leading provider of private mortgage insurance coverage with $180 billion primary insurance in force covering 1.6 million mortgages. MGIC serves over 4,000 lenders with locations across the country and in Puerto Rico, helping families achieve homeownership sooner by making affordable low-down-payment mortgages a reality.
Pat Rioux
