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Genworth sells mortgage insurance that protects lenders if homeowners default, and long-term care insurance that helps people pay for nursing home and home care as they age.
Genworth is an insurance company with two very different jobs. Through its mortgage insurance business, it protects lenders when a home buyer puts down a small deposit and then stops paying the loan. Through its long-term care business, it sells policies that help people cover the cost of nursing homes, assisted living, and care at home when they get old or sick.
Mortgage insurance is the steadier engine. A lender usually requires it when a borrower puts down less than 20%, because the insurer absorbs part of the loss if the loan goes bad. Genworth collects premiums for taking that risk, and the business is highly sensitive to the housing market and unemployment. When jobs are plentiful and home prices rise, claims are few and profits are strong; when foreclosures spike, losses pile up. The company also buys protection for itself, called reinsurance, to cap how much it can lose on a wave of defaults. Long-term care is the complicated, painful part. Genworth sold a huge book of policies years ago that promised generous benefits, then found that people lived longer and care cost more than it had priced in. That left the business with big losses, and it has spent years raising premiums and setting aside more money to cover future claims. The company has also been selling off other pieces, including its stake in a Canadian mortgage insurer, to shore up its finances.
The most important thing to know is that Genworth has spent years trying to separate its two halves. It struck a deal to sell the mortgage insurance business to Oceanwide , a Chinese conglomerate, but the deal collapsed in 2021 after regulators never approved it. It later filed to spin the mortgage business off as a standalone public company called Enact, which began trading on its own in 2021, leaving Genworth as a smaller, mostly long-term-care-focused insurer. That split is the key to understanding the company today: one cleaner, profitable mortgage insurer, and one legacy care insurer still working through old promises.
Saved answer 路 last researched 15 Nov 2026