Essent Group is a monoline private mortgage insurer at the peak of its portfolio's claims cycle, and the second quarter of 2026 revealed that the book is seasoning faster than the investment portfolio can offset. The mortgage segment's combined ratio climbed from 27.5 to 31.6 over the first half. The default inventory grew to roughly 20,300 policies, and the reserves per default rose as the book aged. The tension is between a mortgage core that is entering its most claim-heavy years and a reinsurance book that is just getting started.
The central tension is between a core that still earns at double-digit returns on equity and a reinsurance franchise that expanded from a mortgage-only book to a property and casualty book in the first quarter. Non-mortgage premiums in the reinsurance segment reached 89 percent of net premiums written in the half, and the segment now carries real loss volatility that it has never previously underwritten.
Net income for the half was 361.5 million, or 3.89 per diluted share. Book value per share stood at 63.01, and the quarterly dividend was raised to 0.35. The question for the next twelve months is whether the mortgage loss ratio holds near its mid-teens while the new property and casualty book proves its underwriting at Lloyd's.