"Americans spend more than $16 billion annually for title insurance when buying, selling or refinancing their homes. But few people question the expense, even though they're probably paying too much, say consumer advocates and government regulators."

"...because consumers generally do not pick their title agent or insurer, title agents do not market to them but to the real estate and mortgage professionals who generally make the decision. This can create conflicts of interest if those making the referrals have a financial interest in the agent. These and other factors put consumers in a potentially vulnerable situation where, to a great extent, they have little or no influence over the price of title insurance but have little choice but to purchase it."

"But the title industry's halcyon days owe much to the antiquated state laws that thwart new competition, allow prices to soar despite declining costs and force almost every home buyer to pay for insurance that most of them will never need. In all but a handful of states, laws bar insurance giants in other fields, such as AIG or State Farm, from offering title insurance and undercutting incumbents' prices. It also is illegal for anyone to offer guarantees that provide the same protection as title insurance."

"The expense of the improper payments, he said, increased the cost of title insurance for home buyers, who are almost universally required by lenders to purchase the coverage. The insurers, Mr. Mike Kreidler, Insurance Commissioner in Washington, said, spend too much money on inducements to get business and focus too little on real market competition."

"In 2005, consumers paid almost $17 billion in premiums for title insurance countrywide. Title insurance remains one of the most costly items at the closing of a real estate transaction, yet consumers poorly understand it."

"This is an industry that is not based on price competition," says California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, whose office is also investigating the title business. "It's based on keeping the consumer in the dark."

"Yet, for even the savviest of insurance consumers, the purchase of a title insurance policy is just one more expensive step in the dizzying, convoluted and often confusing flurry of paperwork and signings that culminate in the closing of a home purchase. Consumers who normally shop around for their insurance and carefully compare prices, typically emerge from the closing on their new home holding an insurance policy that they know virtually nothing about."

"We found a remarkable absence of rate changes by title insurers over the past five years, despite declining costs of production, increased number of transactions and increased revenue per transaction."

"It is highly unusual for an industry to ask to be regulated, but that is exactly what happened in March 1985 when the New Mexico legislature passed a bill regulating title insurance at the behest of the industry."