Title insurance is the cheapest and best insurance you will ever buy. Period. Seriously. Okay, I know that I am biased given I work for Chicago Title Insurance Company Canada, but a big part of why I work here is that I believe in the product. I know all of the arguments about insurance and how expensive it is and when one tries to make a claim, there are issues. I get it. The industry doesn’t have the best reputation – although, on that front I have to tell you the last two times I dealt with other insurance companies (Car accident and Life insurance policy – not mine thankfully), the service and speed was stellar. In any event, Title insurance is different. Title insurance is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy because it is a 1 TIME PREMIUM. That’s right. You pay the premium, which across Canada the average premium is $400 for a homeowner (GTA is higher because values are much higher). One only pays that premium once to cover the entire life of a mortgage (which includes any assignments to another lender) or the length of time one owns the property. So, if one buys a house today and owns it for 50 years, the coverage will still apply. Luckily for title insurance companies, Canadians on average own their homes around 5 years, so we actually get to insure properties more than once.

So, what is title insurance policy and what does it cover? Title insurance covers a homeowner for a myraid of issues relating to a property that home insurance can’t cover for and that a lawyer/clerk/notary can’t protect a homeowner from. It covers matters such as fraud and forgery, survey issues, zoning, work orders and permit issues where the municipality forces a homeowner to fix such problems. It covers the policyholder if there are any actual challenges to the “title” or ownership of your property (or the validity of a mortgage on the property in case of a lender policy) but it goes well beyond that to cover many other issues. So, what happens if a client buys a house and their neighbor subsequently complains that the client’s garage is 3 feet on to her property? Well, title insurance looks at the issue, tries to get the neighbor to be reasonable and settle but if she refuses and wants to be “that” nasty neighbor we always hear about, the title insurer will pay to have the garage moved or the offending portion moved off of the neighbor’s property. Title insurers see all sorts of claims around building permits, unpaid taxes, construction liens, and sadly and rapidly increasing fraud and forgery where someone fraudulently discharges and/or places a new mortgage on title to a property they don’t own. This causes a total mess for the homeowners and the lenders involved and sorting out the mess can be very costly. The beauty of title insurance, in this scenario, is that the title insurer pays the legal fees to sort it out and if the lender ultimately loses priority or the validity of its mortgage or property, title insurer pays the homeowner or the lender the loss without deducting the legal fees incurred to remedy the situation.

While no one loves insurance, as one pays for it and usually don’t need it, its value is often appreciated when there is possibility of a material loss, but the homeowner doesn’t have the right insurance in place. Title insurance is such a simple, inexpensive and invaluable insurance to have that any mortgage professional can categorically and without hesitation recommend it to a homeowner for protection against perils described above and for peace of mind.

Written by John Rider, Senior Vice President, Retail and Commercial Title Insurance, Chicago Title Insurance Company Canada policy

Published by Private Matters Today. Click here to read the published article on Private Matters.

March being the Fraud Prevention Month, always contains a flurry of social media postings of articles and stories around Fraud. It is an excellent way for us to know what fraudsters are doing out in the market and be aware of ways to prevent ourselves from defraud. But with the end of March, it doesn’t mean we can put away our worries for another year. Fraud Prevention Month ends in March, not Fraud. The fraudsters are out there year round and getting increasingly sophisticated in their frauds. It is imperative that we remain vigilant year-round.

Title insurance is essential but is not a complete answer

Title insurance is one excellent way to protect yourself against fraud. While there isn’t coverage for financial fraud, fraud against title or impersonation of a borrower is covered. However, when someone pretending to be the owner of a property and is able to get access (often because there is a renter, there is construction going on at the property or long absences of the homeowner) lenders can be duped – Title insurance is not a complete answer.

You can’t be willfully blind to the information that you are getting from your borrowers to ensure that they are who they say they are. Your lawyer or notary needs to be checking IDs carefully to ensure it is legitimate and you as a lender need to be asking questions and doing credit checks to ensure the person who says they are the owner knows the information that the true owner of the property knows. Companies like Equifax and TransUnion have services that can ask questions of your borrower to ensure they know bank accounts, credit card and other information about the true owner. If they can’t answer those basic questions, you don’t want to lend to them, with or without Title insurance. Nowadays, Title insurance companies are now doing checks on some of these borrowers and I believe there should be increasing checks that you and we should be conducting.

Fraud is on the rise, and you need to be cautious

US Title insurance companies are seeing rapidly increasing amounts of frauds being perpetrated. Increasingly, fraudsters are taking control of lawyers, lenders, borrowers emails and redirecting funds. They are getting real ID from provincial agencies by producing information about the owner, at some level, even these checks against IDs are not foolproof. We don’t need to become paranoid and freeze up the whole market but we need to be aware and if it smells foul, there is probably something wrong with the deal. You need to run from it or at least do more due diligence before signing over those funds.

With or without title insurance no one wants or needs to be embroiled in a fraud mess trying to prove what information all parties had or provided and who these people truly were. While Spring brings the hope of sun, flowers and being outdoors for a change, don’t take your eyes off the game. We can work together and beat these criminals; we just need to work together as a team to do so.