Title Insurance

My wife and I saved $220 or thirty-three percent on title insurance for the house we bought this past Friday (24 Feb). It's our third house. To qualify for the rate reduction we had to get some basic information from the seller: 1) title insurance company they used, 2) amount of coverage they paid for.

The sellers were able to tell us the correct title company name. However, they over-estimated their coverage. No problem, I called the local field office for that title company and identified myself as the buyer of the property and noted the sellers. The title insurance representative pulled up the last title insurance policy (listed under seller's name) and was able to quote me the correct amount of their policy coverage.

The person was very helpful and told me that I would qualify for a $220 reduction in premium. She also mentioned that the attorney i'm using for closing had closed on the house i'm buying in 2003. Thus, my closing attorney should have the documents on hand to show proof of prior coverage.

I promptly called our closing attorney to straighten this out. Their office handles forty closings a month. You would think that verifying past coverage and giving clients the best rate possible would be standard operating procedure (SOP). In my case, it wasn't. Recommend keeping this in mind next time you buy a house.

For further information, see this interesting Kiplingers article on title insurance.