The announcement comes on the heels of MetLife’s decision on Thursday to retreat from the reverse mortgage business, leaving its post as the No. 1 lender.

“Growing our reverse mortgage business and delivering world-class customer service are ourtop priorities in 2012,” said Pete Engelken, President of GFHEA. “To support this vision, we havemade significant enhancements to many of our programs, systems, and processes.”

Those changes include real-time loan status available online, new marketing materials to help find customers, new operations structures, new training paths based on partner needs and an industry first iPhone™ app—”Reverse2go.”

“We also are looking to hire top quality sales and operations staff to support our growth plans,” Engelken said.

Other lenders too have implemented plans to fast track brokers, if they don’t already do so. Security One Lending, for example, offers 48 hour turn times for new partners.

Written by Elizabeth Ecker

“Our Sales Managers will play a critical role in driving the successful growth of our retail channel. These individuals bring extensive HECM product experience and outstanding leadership skills to GFHEA’s team,” said Tim Frederick, retail sales leader.

The company has hired Adrian Prieto, Peter Klamkin, Melanie Parks, Barbara Sica, Luigi Cingolani and George Vrban who will all serve in regional sales.

Prieto, with 16 years of reverse mortgage and retirement services experience, will lead GFHEA’s New York and New England regions. Klamkin, who has experience in insurance, affinity marketing and reverse mortgages is responsible for the central territory. Parks, formerly of Financial Freedom and MetLife bank, will lead retail in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California territories.

The mid-Atlantic territory will be led by Sica, formerly of Wells Fargo and BNY Mortgage; Cingolani will lead Southern California and Arizona after holding a sales manager position with Wilson Lending and owning a reverse mortgage company; and Vrban is responsible for the Southeast territory. Vrban brings more than 20 years of insurance and financial planning experience.

GFHEA has grown as an industry retail and wholesale leader, now ranking No. 8 for retail, No. 4 for wholesale and fifth overall, according to the most recent data from Reverse Market Insight.

“Our retail managers were selected for their extensive industry experience, focus on coaching and employee success, and passion for senior customers,” Frederick said. “Significant growth is under way at GFHEA, and I’m very pleased to welcome such remarkably talented leaders to our team.”

Written by Elizabeth Ecker

The phased approach is one that has not been fully tested by other lenders. MetLife, the first company to implement new underwriting guidelines following industry guidance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association, later suspended the new policy when other lenders failed to follow suit. Urban Financial Group later announced it was seeking feedback on a draft of a financial assessment for borrowers, but has yet to implement any changes to its underwriting or financial assessment guidelines.

Most lenders agree that some form of financial assessment is needed, but have struggled with the details of such an assessment and the right way to implement it.

“Limited underwriting on property charges is a reasonable solution that should improve the long-term integrity of the HECM Program,” GFHEA president and CEO Pete Engelken told RMD in an email. “Our emphasis when creating the guidelines is to make the new process simple for everyone.”

While GFHEA is mum on the details of its assessment, the company has stated its plans to implement changes in three phases; a process that the company has stated it plans to begin in the first quarter of 2012.

“Our plan is to implement limited underwriting guidelines in three phases,” Engelken said. “Phase 1 will be getting feedback from our customers, such as brokers and correspondent lenders. We will publish guidelines, introduce new calculator technology and ask for comments.”

After the initial phase, GFHEA plans to look to its retail channel and then other channels after testing internally.

“In phase 2 we will test the program in production with our retail channel and make adjustments as appropriate (no wholesale business will be affected during phase 2). In phase 3 we will roll out the guidelines to all business channels,” he said.

GFHEA has not stated a time frame for implementation beyond its Q1 plan.

HUD is working on its own financial assessment, which the Department told RMD in early 2011 will require several months of rule making.

Written by Elizabeth Ecker

In its quarterly report, Genworth noted the move away from certain business channels in order to focus on profitable business segments. It cited strong life insurance business and recovering mortgage insurance unit as leading to its quarterly results.

During the quarter, the company reported an increase in corporate and other net operating loss, attributing the greater loss to goodwill associated with the company’s reverse mortgage business. Genworth acquired Liberty Reverse in November 2007 for $50 million and was the first major insurance provider to acquire a reverse mortgage lender.

During the fourth quarter, Genworth reported a non-cash impairment charge of $19 million to write off all of the goodwill associated with the reverse mortgage business, the company reported.

“Corporate and Other’s net operating loss was $63 million, compared with $45 million in the prior year quarter, driven primarily by a $19 million after-tax impairment of all the goodwill associated with the reverse mortgage business,” the company stated in its earnings report.

“For Genworth, 2011 was a year of repositioning actions to move the company through an uncertain environment and provide a foundation for improved shareholder value. We made progress in several areas and will maintain an intense execution focus during 2012.” said Michael Frazier, Genworth chairman and CEO. “At business portfolio and product line levels, we took important steps to improve our focus, strengthen risk buffers and capital generation, and support future redeployment of capital.”

Genworth’s stock price rose 7% to $8.62 per share following the announcement Thursday.

Written by Elizabeth Ecker

“Bob brings a wealth of reverse mortgage knowledge and experience and we are excited to have himlead a key territory for us,” said Bob Marseilles, GFHEA National Sales Leader. “We are excited to have him on board and know that our brokers in his area will benefit from the service and support he is able to provide.”

Garczewski’s years of experience in the mortgage business as well as insurance and financial planning will help his business partners continue to grow and develop their reverse mortgage business, GFHEA said in the announcement.

GFHEA operates retail and wholesale reverse mortgage channels and currently ranks in the top-10 lenders at No. 7. The company closed 2,310 loans in 2011, nearly doubling its volume from the previous year, according to data from Reverse Market Insight.

Written by Elizabeth Ecker

While there have been rumors floating around for the last few months that New York Life, one of the largest mutual life insurance companies in the United States, was looking to enter the space, a new job opening confirms the company plans to enter the reverse mortgage business.

According to the job description, the company is looking for someone to oversee all financial reporting and business planning elements of its Home Equity Income Solutions (HEIS) business line. New York Life describes its HEIS business as a “proprietary approach to the reverse mortgage market.”

During the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association annual conference in Boston earlier this year, New York Life discussed offering some type of proprietary reverse mortgage product during meetings with several key industry leaders according to RMD sources. Whether or not HEIS will include a proprietary product isn’t yet known.

New York Life has several relationships with AARP to offer life insurance and lifetime income products to its members and a source who spoke with the company in Boston said it’s looking at doing the same thing with reverse mortgages.

It’s not clear when the company will launch the new business line and the company declined to comment specifically on its reverse mortgage plans.

“The company is always looking at new business opportunities,” said a company spokesman in an email to RMD. “However, it is company policy not to comment on rumors or speculation. Our practice is that when we have news to announce we do so promptly.”

While the company might call this speculation, it’s the first public confirmation from one of the largest mutual life insurance companies that it is gearing up to possibly enter the reverse mortgage business.

Last Wednesday, the company announced it was temporarily suspending those product offerings, “until market conditions allow for GFHEA to reintroduce [the] offerings.”

Brokers told RMD the ARM products GFHEA is offering are priced less aggressively than others in the marketplace.

GFHEA did not note any change to its fixed rate product offerings for manufactured homes, which it also suspended last week.

RMD contacted GFHEA for more information, but our request had not been answered as of press time.

Written by Elizabeth Ecker

Genworth cut several HECM product offerings. Genworth Financial Home Equity Access (GFHEA) announced late Wednesday it is temporarily eliminating a range of reverse mortgage products offered through its wholesale and correspondent channels, including adjustable rate HECMs (both the Standard and Saver) as well as fixed rate HECM products for manufactured homes.

A change cutting brokers from the HUD HECM Lender list came to light. Since the Federal Housing Administration made the shift to include non-FHA-approved third party originators to originate HECM loans, the HUD Lender List has cut all non-FHA approved brokers, even though they are approved through their lenders. Brokers raised concerns over establishing legitimacy when they are not on the list…

The CFPB debuted its Office of Older Americans chief. Senior financial protection czar Hubert “Skip” Humphrey has taken the reins and said he will be on the lookout for senior scams including those that impact seniors’ home equity.

Two lenders saw retail volume double this year. A Reverse Market Insight report indicated that American Advisors Group grew its volume 115.1% and MetLife gained 90.1% in 2011. Total endorsement growth in the reverse mortgage industry was up 5.3% in August.

In a forward world, reverse got some special attention. A reverse mortgage booth at a  national Mortgage Bankers Association conference saw lots of forward interest in reverse products. Participants said it was a “healthy” level of interest.

…and look out for RMD, appearing live on a 9 am panel at the NRMLA Boston conference this coming Monday. We’ll be talking about how you can best share your reverse mortgage story with the press. Stay tuned!