Why don't people shop around for Title Insurance?

I am in MO. When I bought some land I had 2 title insurance companies bidding back and forth. One of them finally got mad and refused to give me insurance. It saved me several hundred dollars however.

It does depend very much on your state. I stumbled across a great site for Colorado borrowers, http://www.mytitleins.com/. I knew I could shop around for a refi (for purchases, the seller traditionally pays for & chooses the title company), but it was a real hassle finding "retail" service providers and comparing them. I hope it takes off & spreads to other states.

My name is Fred Kauber; I'm the CIO of Entitle Direct. We are pleased that our site is of use and interest to this community, and since
the topic has been raised would like to elaborate a little further on our service. As was alluded to in the first post in this thread, our goal is to
educate consumers that they do have a choice when it comes to title insurance, and we seek to reward them with a discount of up to 35% or more
when they elect to exercise that choice with us. As interest rates continue to drop, mortgage re-financing is becoming an increasingly
attractive cost saving option which can be magnified with savings on title insurance.

In addition to offering cost savings, we wish to make the entire closing process more efficient; to this end, we offer an exclusive online Control Panel, which is a utility
that the consumer can use to organize and review important closing documents in advance of the closing. An all too frequent experience at many traditional closings is that
the consumer is expected to sign documents that they are seeing for the very first time, and that is clearly a situation which can and should be avoided.

As has been noted in several posts in this thread, title insurance rates and practices do vary from state to state, and we provide dedicated
Closing Specialists who can advise consumers of the details specific to their state and who can also provide personalized service to manage the entire
closing process. I would encourage anyone that has specific questions about how to maximize their title insurance savings or better manage their own closing
to contact one of our Closing Specialists; our URL has been posted elsewhere in this thread, and our toll free number can be found on our website.

Happy holidays!

Xnarg said: Title insurance costs several times as much in regulated states as it does in unregulated states. In regulated states, title companies are large contributors to politicians. Don't look for those states to deregulate any time soon. Their state legislatures are bought and paid for by excessive title insurance fees charges.

This is often the case with regulated rates, such as used to be the case with freight and air fares - competition brought the prices down dramatically.Isn't it true that even in unregulated states, the underwriting profits in title insurance business is nothing less than astronomical? It seems that rather than competition, the industry is dominated by collusion and price fixings. Obviously to continue to enjoy the ability to over-charge consumers, the companies have politicians in their pockets. This is nothing different from the "military industrial complex".

I remember Radian, a PMI provider, had promoted a title insurance produce for refi which was priced at a fraction of a title policy. But in California the title companies successfully lobbied the commissioner to ban it from that state (which probably resulted in the product's complete failure).

FYI, from Entitle Direct's website: "at the present time we are offering services only in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Virginia."

My state is not included, but I gave them an email address to notify me if/when that changes. It sounds like a great service to me.

I am wondering if regulated fees are just maximum fees. The optimum strategy for a provider is to set the fees at the maximum if he is reasonably certain all his competition will do exactly the same.

nycll said: ...Isn't it true that even in unregulated states, the underwriting profits in title insurance business is nothing less than astronomical? It seems that rather than competition, the industry is dominated by collusion and price fixings. Obviously to continue to enjoy the ability to over-charge consumers, the companies have politicians in their pockets. This is nothing different from the "military industrial complex".

I remember Radian, a PMI provider, had promoted a title insurance produce for refi which was priced at a fraction of a title policy. But in California the title companies successfully lobbied the commissioner to ban it from that state (which probably resulted in the product's complete failure).CA is a regulated state, hence the much higher rates and lack of competition.

Title insurers about break even in unregulated states (due to competition) and make their profit in regulated states.

The regulated fees are not maximums, those are the fees that are set by the state insurance commission and must be charged. Example: Pennsylvania.

winter said: I did the online price quote from Entitle Direct and compared it to my actual closing from one month ago:

Your Title Insurance quote from ENTITLE DIRECT $449.76
Title Insurance quote from major competitors: $990.75
You save $540.99

My actual cost at closing was $767.40 so my actual savings would be $317.64, not as much as they claim but still quite nice.

I'd like to know how this is possible since I'm in one of the states with regulated title insurance fees - I didn't think there was any flexibility in pricing. Fred Kauber can you comment on that?

In response to Winter's request above, I'll briefly address the issue of state regulated title insurance fees, as there is reason for confusion.
There are only 3 states where title insurance rates are formally set via regulation - New Mexico, Texas, and Florida (and
discounts are permissible under some circumstances in Florida); in addition, Iowa is the only state in the US where conventional title
insurance is not allowed, and is instead provided by the state (for a fee) as part of a title guarantee program.

In the majority of the remaining states, title companies must file their rates and be licensed with the state; the state can reject the filing, but the state
does not itself dictate the fees. In some cases, the title companies in a given state may form a quasi-private entity licensed by the state called a Rating Bureau
to provide recommendations regarding title insurance rates in that state and to establish the rates for its member companies. It is important
to note that membership in a rating bureau is voluntary; therefore, the existence of a rating bureau in a state does not prevent independent title
insurance companies like Entitle Direct that are not members of the rating bureau from filing their own rates for the state's consideration and
subsequent approval/rejection. In most states, therefore, the term 'regulated' describes the fact that the government provides oversight and has
the right of rejection over rating bureau and independent title insurance company rates; these states do not mandate specific rates, and the rates
established by rating bureaus for their member title insurance companies in these states are not binding over non-member title insurance companies
like Entitle Direct, setting the stage for competition.

In regard to the specific quote that Winter received, it is difficult for me to comment on the specifics as I do not have all of the information, such as the
state in question, the nature of the transaction (ie. re-finance or a purchase), etc. However, one common cause for differences in quotes from different
title insurance companies is that different types of policies are the subject of the quote. For example, is the quote for a lender's policy (protects the
lender up to the amount of the outstanding balance of the mortgage if a title claim is made) or owner's policy (provides the purchaser coverage up to
the purchase price of the property), or both? In the case of owner's policies, is it a basic owner's policy which has fewer coverages, or an enhanced policy which
covers items such as post policy forgery and identity theft, building permit violations of previous owners, violations of restrictive covenants, inability to access
the property, and zoning law violations? It is very common for some carriers to quote solely on basic title insurance policies, which would tend to be cheaper;
the quotes currently offered by Entitle Direct are for enhanced policies and we use that as the basis of our quote comparison with competitors. Additional detail on
these policy types can be found at http://www.entitledirect.com.

Due to the variety of state and policy type considerations that may have affected the comparison with our quote, my
recommendation would be to discuss the specifics of the situation with one of our expert closing specialists at
1-877-9-ENTITLE (1-877-936-8485) so they can provide personalized feedback and advice.

Does anyone have any suggestions for title insurance in NJ for a mortgage refinance?

Because they didn't get TI

any updates? I am closing pretty soon and want to use entitle direct.

I just want to once again advocate the importance of shopping around for closing costs and
when doing so be sure to compare apples to apples in regard to fees, which
is not always easy. For example, in regard to escrow fees as raised in the prior post,
it is not uncommon for additional fees such as wire fees, FedEx/document delivery
fees, etc. to be added on top of the initially quoted fee. In CA, there is also
sometimes an assumption when quoting escrow fees for a purchase that the
seller is going to assume half of the fee cost, and so only 50% of the fee
is quoted to the buyer. Consumers need to educate themselves on the universe
of possible closing fees and be very explicit that the fee they are being quoted is
in fact the final fee that will be charged and not subject to variance. For
example, final document recording fees are often subject to some variability
because it is dependent on the per page charge assessed by the local municipality
involved in the transaction, so fees vary by locale and the number of pages
being filed which is not always possible to predict 100% accurately. Make sure
that whoever is handling your closing is committed to full disclosure of all
fees upfront, as ENTITLE DIRECT is.

I am just about to close on a home purchase with penfed. I didnt really know what penfed was talking about when they asked do we want to choose our own settlement agent. I thought it was just the lawyer who performs the actual "please sign here ritual and generates the docs." It turns out penfed uses Fiserv for the settlement agent. In exchange for allowing them to choose the settlement agent, they paid the settlement fee ($505.)

However, the lender's title insurance fee is $1,200. The owner's title insurance fee is $1,300! entitle wants about $1,300 for BOTH, and a settlement fee of $800. Going the entitle route would have saved us $400.