Genworth Financial earned a lower profit from higher revenues in Australia in the year to December 2011, its annual report, released yesterday, shows.The lenders' mortgage insurance company - which is likely to list on the Australian Securities Exchange some time in 2012 - may have to work harder to milk more profit from a business that is underwriting less credit risk than it did during the lending boom of the mid-2000s.One way of protecting profits is price increases. A lift in premiums early last year (which was also adopted by its main competitor, QBE Lenders Mortgage Insurance) helped lift the top line. Genworth reported that net premiums written in 2011 increased 90 per cent (in US dollar terms) to US$347 million. The level of new loans insured in 2011, however, increased by only nine per cent, to US$32 billion.The firm said it expected earned premium income - that is, premiums recognised in the profit and loss from loans insured in the prior year - would decline in 2012.The revenue line, which includes investment income, increased 23 per cent, to US$612 million.Net profit eased to US$200 million in 2011, from US$205 million in 2010.The annual report confirms a rise in problem loans for the mortgage insurer. Genworth put delinquencies at 0.55 per cent at December 2011, up from 0.48 per cent at the end of 2010.The loss ratio increased to 47 per cent in 2011, from 40 per cent in 2010, but was down from a loss ratio of 50 per cent in 2009.It is the banks' conduct as much as their borrowers driving this rise, as they have "accelerated" mortgage insurance claims.The US-based specialist insurance company is considering the sale of up to 40 per cent of its Australian subsidiary, through a listing on the ASX, a plan it announced in November 2011.Genworth confirmed this plan in its annual report, including its objective to "maintain control".