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Freddie Mac Offloads More Credit Risk to Insurers

Freddie Mac has taken out another reinsurance policy that transfers the risk that mortgages it insures will default.

This particular agency credit insurance structure (ACIS) provides coverage based on the actual losses incurred by the government sponsored enterprise on a referenced pool of residential mortgages for up to $132.5 million.

By obtaining this policy, Freddie has sold off much of what it still held in credit risk linked to the first actual-loss bond issued through the agency's larger risk-sharing program, called STACR (Structured Agency Credit Risk).

That deal, Structured Agency Credit Risk Debt Notes, 2015 DNA-1, reinsured a $31.9 billion pool of loans bundled into bonds guaranteed by Freddie. Those loans were acquired in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Prior to that transaction, issued in April, the losses measured in STACR deals were based on what is known as a “fixed severity” approach; after loans in the referenced pool become 180 days delinquent, they are assumed to default and Freddie deducts what it expects to lose on the loan from STACR investors. 

Last July, for the first time Freddie obtained insurance through an ACIS deal that provided coverage on both first loss and actual losses.

Freddie has taken out more than $1 billion in credit-risk insurance via ACIS deals so far in 2015, and $2 billion since the program launched in 2013, according to VP Kevin Palmer.

The current deal transferred risk to “new and past participants” Palmer said in the release.

Freddie has issued 15 STACR transactions. Through ACIS and STACR combined Freddie has transferred credit risk on more than $333 billion in residential mortgage as measured by their unpaid principal balance.    

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