Mortgage insurer Genworth Financial reported yesterday that cases of financial hardship are on the rise, although levels are not abnormal.Genworth measures hardship by the number of applications made for hardship relief. The insurer has what it calls a hardship solutions team that works with lenders.Genworth has more than one million LMI policies in force in Australia. It has recently approved its 1000th case for hardship assistance.At the end of March about 5000 of the loans on its books were delinquent over 90 days. Genworth said the most common cause of hardship was injury or illness - responsible for 36 per cent of applications. Other main causes were unemployment  (in 16 per cent of cases), decreased earnings (16 per cent), maternity leave (11 per cent) and relationship breakdown (four per cent).Genworth said overspending on credit cards was a far more likely catalyst for tipping a household into hardship than overcommitment on the mortgage.Common remedies applied by lenders included: deferring repayments and capitalising them; reducing repayments for a period of time; capitalising arrears into the loan; making the loan interest-only for an agreed period; and extending loan terms for up to 40 years and reducing repayments.