The American Title Insurance Industry: How a Cartel Fleeces the American Consumer

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments The authors are indebted to many persons for encouragement and for information about the title industry and its affiliated enterprises. Robert R. Carter Jr., the deputy commissioner of the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI), encouraged the authors to study the title insurance industry and apply for a research grant. He facilitated contact with insurance commissioners throughout the country. Clare Pramuk, the director of data services at TDI, helped the project staff interpret statistical information. Hernando de Soto, the president of the Peruvian Institute of Liberty and Democracy of Lima and the author of The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, places the title insurance concept into a historical and logical framework. Lori O’Neal handled the accounting, travel, and business management of the project with great efficiency. She also dealt with the final editing of the manuscript. Much of the manuscript was copyedited by Moira Foreman, Margaret Sheer, and Wendy Willingham. Their attention to detail did much to improve the clarity and accuracy of the data presentation. Any errors of omission or of presentation are the exclusive responsibility of the authors. Two masters students’ research projects at the University of Texas at Austin (UT/Austin) provided exploratory research. Robert Neville Clifton compared state title systems .1 Emilie Melanie Leroux investigated the Texas title system.2 The search for older information was facilitated by the computer program support of David Schatz and Allen “Skip” Grandee. Brad Loller and Maria Gurvich, students at the University of Pittsburgh, served as part-time research assistants. Ismael Rivera and Galina Spicehandler provided access to the Davis Library of St. John’s University, which has a specialized academic program for insurance industry specialists. The librarian of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) in Kansas City provided access to the NAIC’s library. Ron Usher, a staff attorney and the CEO of Juricert Services, Inc.; 221 Bruce Laycock, the general counsel of the Office of the Auditor General of Alberta; and Kathleen A. Waters, a vice-president of TitlePLUS , all helped to locate sources of information about the interaction between the Canadian commercial title insurance services and the Torrens title insurance systems. Malcolm S. Morris, the president of the Stewart Title Guarantee Company, offered himself as a sounding board for several hours to reflect on the American achievement that turned property titles into a multi-billion-dollar capital resource. Nearly all title insurance companies responded to requests to furnish copies of their publicly available reports. The October Research Corporation provided staff with pro bono access to two newsletters, the Title Report: Market Intelligence for the Title Insurance Industry and The Legal Description. They provide the industry with market intelligence, business news, and federal and state regulatory information. Courtesy subscriptions were also provided by the informative Realty Times and the Inman News services. Dennis A. Dietz, Lloyd Ogle, and Matt White of the Iowa Finance Authority’s Title Guaranty Division provided information about the operations of this publicly owned and managed title guarantee service . Julian B. Garrett, a former director of the Title Guaranty Division, verified the low loss ratio since the program began to function in 1987. He also donated pro bono copies of his “Quarterly Communiqués,” research-based reports about the public policy issues dealt with by the NAIC. James W. Carney, the legislative counsel of the Iowa Bar Association , furnished a copy of his nationwide survey of lender and owner title insurance premiums, which was more detailed than a survey conducted by the authors. The findings of the two surveys validated each other. Sharon Presnall, a senior vice-president of the Iowa Bankers Association, shared the findings of a survey of 304 out of 439 requested responses from Iowa attorneys of the fees charged and the time required to secure a title abstract and to render a legal opinion of its validity. George Mills, a retired reporter in Des Moines, provided background information about the circumstances that led the Iowa legislature to outlaw the marketing of for-profit title insurance policies in 1947. County clerks all over the United States manage the basic database that title insurance companies use free of charge to eliminate re222 Acknowledgments corded title defects before writing an insurance policy. This study owes much to Dana DeBeauvoir, the clerk of Travis County, who supported the concept of the study, wrote to recommend it to potential sources of support, helped...