news-record.com

GREENSBORO — United Guaranty is now hiring at least 100 workers after laying off 160 in June.

The mortgage insurer said Wednesday that it has begun a revamped campaign to work more closely with homeowners who are close to foreclosure.

It’s a twofold strategy: raise the company’s profile to prevent losses and spend more time reviewing the loans that it insures, said John E. Gaines, the senior vice president for domestic operations and business systems.

The new hires will bring total employees on North Elm Street to about 450 after sinking as low as 340 earlier this summer.

About 40 independent contract workers already have converted to full time, and the company recently hired back 20 workers laid off earlier this year, and is now looking for at least 50 more workers.

United is looking for workers with loan underwriting experience or with experience in other areas that require critical skills for its claims and loss-management departments.

The company invites job applicants to send their resumes to reddenll@ugcorp.com.

United is boosting its outreach to homeowners. Mortgage insurers like United typically stay in the background because their primary contact is with mortgage banks; many homeowners don’t even know who their insurer is.

Gaines said the company wants to change that by sending at-risk homeowners a letter and other materials that offer a friendly hand with digging out of financial trouble. It’s a campaign designed to stand out from the many upsetting letters a homeowner may receive from other companies.

Since last Friday, United Guaranty has mailed more than 8,000 information packets and letters.

The message is that homeowners don’t have to face foreclosure alone.

“The goal is to keep individuals in their homes” and to make them more aware of programs with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and others that can lower payments.

Gaines said there’s muscle behind the pitch: United Guaranty will work with a lender to help the homeowner modify a mortgage to reduce the monthly payment.

The homeowner wins, and United Guaranty, which lost $2.5 billion in 2008, won’t have to pay another claim.

Gaines said mortgage service companies are swamped with work, and while it may have been unusual in the past for a mortgage insurer to work so closely with homeowners, the financial crisis has changed everything.

“There’s a whole lot of working together in the industry,” he said. “What can we do to keep people in their homes?”

It’s too early to say how much money this effort could save United Guaranty, Gaines said, because they’re at the beginning of the process.

“We’ve always contacted the borrower,” he said, “but we want to do it in a more friendly and effective way.”

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com