In this study, we have systematically investigated a magnetic resonance absorption and tunability of absorption wavelength in isolated metal-insulator-metal (MIM) nanodot arrays with transmission geometry. The elemental electromagnetic resonances and their hybridizations are studied using 3-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) calculation and resonance properties including the resonance peak tunability, magnetic permeability and quality (Q) factor are characterized with respect to the coupling strength. We have found the existence of electric and magnetic resonance mode in the MIM (Au/MgF2/Au) structure and the magnetic resonance has larger wavelength tunability than the electric resonance. The absorption cross section calculation revealed that absorption is the dominant extinction process at the magnetic resonance only. Magnetic permeability (mu) calculations for the various MIM parameters showed the maximum value of the imaginary part of mu is 16.1 with Q factor of 9.2 when the size of nanodot is 200 nm and the inter-dot distance is 300 nm. The presented calculations can be used to tune the response of the magnetic resonance absorption with a variable resonance wavelength and Q factor by using the simple MIM structures with transmission geometry. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.