The American Land Title Association (ALTA), a national trade association representing members of the title insurance industry, announced that veteran land title insurance industry professional Christopher Abbinante has been named president for the 2011-2012 year.
“It is a privilege to represent an industry whose purpose is to protect consumers against legal challenges to their homeownership,” Abbinante said. “I am honored to serve as president of a growing and vibrant association, now representing more than 4,000 member companies. The American Land Title Association is committed to constantly improving its representation and service to our industry.”
The 11-member ALTA Board of Governors is responsible for creating association policy, managing the financial health of the association, and ensuring the overall welfare of the association.
According to a Nov. 1 release, Abbinante, formerly the president of Eastern Operations for Fidelity National Title Group, Inc., has been involved in the title industry for over 35 years. During that time, he has worked with agents and direct operations across the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean.
Abbinante started in the land title industry in 1975, working for a law firm in Chicago that also had a small title agency. In 1976, he joined Chicago Title, serving in many different capacities. In 2001, Chicago Title became part of the Fidelity National Financial Family of Title Companies. Abbinante now focuses on Fidelity’s Canadian operations as well as with U.S.-based operations located primarily in the eastern and central parts of the country.
“Chris is the right person to lead our association through the challenges we currently face. His talents as a title insurance executive are well regarded throughout the industry and he inspires confidence as we work to better serve consumers,” said Michelle Korsmo, chief executive officer of ALTA.
Posted via email from Title Insurance WFG National Title Insurance Company has announced Ravi Bapodra as its new VP and managing director of TitleNet. The Williston Financial Group family of title insurers is currently licensed and operating in 40 jurisdictions nationwide. TitleNet, a division of WFG National Title, is a national provider of title, closing and settlement services comprised of a national network of independent providers using a centralized technology platform. The operation processes residential and commercial transactions, as well as loss mitigation, default and real estate-owned (REO) transactions. Bapodra will oversee the growth of TitleNet and maintain its relationship with its network of independent providers and clients. He comes to WFG National Title and TitleNet with 13 years of industry experience. He was most recently vice president of default product services with one of the nation’s largest title underwriters. He has spent the majority of his career in executive positions with two other large national underwriters. “Ravi excels at harnessing the strength of independent businesses, and connecting them to national and regional banks, REO firms, GSEs and other companies to meet or exceed their performance standards, the concept at the core of the TitleNet model,” said Joseph Drum Esq., EVP of WFG National Title. “His role will be to allow our independent agencies to do what they do best, while supplementing them with top-flight resources, guidance and coordination. Our agencies will quickly find Ravi and TitleNet to be outstanding assets.” Posted via email from Title Insurance The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has decided to ramp up its oversight of title insurers. The problem stems from problems at small and regional title companies, not the four large title companies, according to Paul Bauer, a vice president and senior credit officer on the insurance team at Moody’s Investors Service. Bauer, who covers three of the large title insurers, says the larger ones are more prepared to weather the current storm caused by the housing crisis than the small ones. “They have more scale and more flexibility from a cost-management standpoint,” he says. He adds that title insurers are “different from other [property and casualty] insurers because a lot of what needs to be done is expense management.” The NAIC’s decision for increased oversight was made by the Title Insurance Task Force at the NAIC’s Fall National Meeting, which ended here Sunday. The decision follows the failure of three title insurance companies so far in 2011. The task force plans to work with other NAIC working groups to modernize solvency regulation of the industry. These efforts will include looking at recent industry failures, developing risk-based capital requirements, early warning tools, and risk-focused examination guidelines. The core title insurance industry problem is that it “continues to deal with the aftermath of the great housing price bubble and its painfully slow deflation,” Bauer says in an April report. He adds, “We expect title insurance companies to be challenged over the medium term by a shrinking revenue base and lower income due to a drop in mortgage refinancings accompanied by only a mild, if any, uptick in overall home-sale transactions.” Posted via email from Title Insurance
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Title Insurers’ Struggles Expected to Continue as NAIC Steps Up Oversight | PropertyCasualty360
Continuing Ed for Title Agents
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