Question-and-Answer Session
[Operator Instructions]. And we'll go first to David Lewis with Raymond James.
David Lewis - Raymond James & Associates
How are you Aldo?
Aldo C. Zucaro - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Good, how are you?
David Lewis - Raymond James & Associates
Doing fine, thank you. Couple of questions start with mortgaging trends over the past year or so. We've all been talking about the sub-prime side. Are you seeing this, the prime side of your book start to see higher delinquency rates here and do you anticipate that current developing were some of the predictions will occur with unemployment?
Aldo C. Zucaro - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Higher delinquency rates with respect to any particular vintage or what?
David Lewis - Raymond James & Associates
Well. And I am just trying and get more of the prime side of the business versus the sub-prime side?
Aldo C. Zucaro - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Okay, Chris do you want to --
Christopher S. Nard - Senior Vice President Mortgage Guaranty and President and Chief Executive Officer Republic Mortgage Insurance Companies
Yes sure, David how are you?
David Lewis - Raymond James & Associates
Good.
Christopher S. Nard - Senior Vice President Mortgage Guaranty and President and Chief Executive Officer Republic Mortgage Insurance Companies
One thing I'll differentiate is we were never a huge player in the sub-prime space. So, it's not like through this period that all the stress in the mortgage guarantees has been caused by the sub-prime book, and prime books have been fine and then all of a sudden now the prime book is under pressure. I think it's safe to say that through this whole period most of the insurance books either sub prime or other high risk attributes like reduced stock and the prime book have been under pressure for a while.
So I wouldn't think that, the increasing pressure on the economy employment in particular is all of a sudden going to take the prime book from a dead stop meaning everything is fine. But also now it's going to take a huge jump because of stress in the economy. It's been under stress for a while. With that said I would also say there's not, we've never found there to be a linear relationship between losses and stress in the employment side, it takes long time for kind of normal job losses to work their way through to mortgage guarantee claims. And by as to work through any severance you may have, unemployment whatever savings and by that time you are generally 12 months or so into the cycle. Not to say that delinquency is down for pressure on us, but again we don't see it is a direct unemployment, we don't see it as a kind of direct one to one.
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