The information about bond insurers and bond insurance coverage was a topic in their earnings reports in early conservatorship, but nowadays FnF don't talk about it, primarily because they no longer hold PLMBSs. The important thing is that the purchase of PLMBS was illegal in the Credit Enhancement clause of the Charter Act (Lack of credit enhancement operation. For instance, today's commingled securites/resecuritizations/Catastrophic-Loss Reinsurance do comply with this clause, as the underlying securities are 100% insured by other guarantors. Credit Enhancement operation number (iii)). Had the FHFA complied with the law, the conservatorships wouldn't have existed.
Nowadays, more illegal operations with the Credit Risk Transfers (CRTs), because it's not one of the enumerated Credit Enhancement operations authorized. The fact that there are senators like the former senator Toomey or currently, senator Rounds this week, encouraging the FHFA director to do CRTs, doesn't make it a law, or an amendment of the Charter Act. Both repeat the same slogan as Sandra Thompson: "To protect the taxpayer". The taxpayer doesn't bear credit risk in FnF. It just buys obligations SPS upon negative Net Worth ("capital deficiency"), which matches the "finance their operations as a last resort" written in the section Purposes of the Charter Act, in exchange for their Public Mission written below it (outdated nowadays if they no longer subsidize the g-fee; Duty to Serve protected by the Fair Housing Act, etc). That is, a UST backup and not govt implied guarantee on the MBS. $19B in CRT expenses and recoveries, net, is due (turned into Retained Earnings account. This account is the sound and solvent condition to protect the SPS and the taxpayer: soundness and solvency)
Watching the UPB of those PLMBSs covered in 2010, and then, the unrealized losses, it doesn't look like the insurance claim against the bond insurers was large.
The main economic harm in FnF was caused by the mispricing of the PLMBSs by Wall Street, with the objective to prompt the conservatorships in FnF. Later, the PLMBS skyrocketed in price. The S.E.C. years later found no evidence of PLMBS price manipulation those years. This is the line item AOCI (accumulated unrealized losses in AFS securities) in Equity that prompted the conservatorship. FnF didn't know the banks' trick of "Held-to-maturity portfolio".
Freddie Mac:
At March 31, 2010, we had coverage, including secondary policies on securities, totaling $11.5 billion of unpaid principal balance of our investments in securities. At March 31, 2010, the top five of our bond insurers, Ambac Assurance Corporation, or Ambac, Financial Guaranty Insurance Company, or FGIC, MBIA Insurance Corp., Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp., or AGMC, and National Public Finance Guarantee Corp., or NPFCG, each accounted for more than 10% of our overall bond insurance coverage and collectively represented approximately 99% of our total coverage.
We recognized other-than-temporary impairment losses during 2009 and the first quarter of 2010 related to investments in mortgage-related securities covered by bond insurance as a result of our uncertainty over whether or not certain insurers will meet our future claims in the event of a loss on the securities.