Title Insurance Best Practices

Community Title Services proudly meets and exceeds the industry standards in the American Land Title Association’s (ALTA) Title Insurance and Settlement Company Best Practices.

These important standards ensure lenders, consumers, and investors have increased faith in their title insurance and settlement service providers, such as Community Title Services.

Some may view these industry best practices as mandates but Community Title Services sees compliance as a good business procedure, and we’re proud that many of our policies and procedures met or exceeded these standards before they were formalized by ALTA.

The seven pillars of ALTA’s Best Practices include: maintaining proper licensing; ensuring proper procedures for escrow services; protecting non-public personal information; maintaining proper closing procedures; guaranteeing proper delivery of title insurance policies; being properly insured; and appropriately handling customer complaints.

Ensuring Proper Protocols

Community Title Services keeps separate escrow and operating accounts in its markets. Escrow accounts are prepared with trial balances and reconciled at least monthly but frequently more often than that using trusted RynohLive software.

The duties of our closing and escrow departments are segregated so that employees involved in reconciliation duties have no signing authorities on those accounts.

In addition, only authorized employees can conduct closings/settlements and only those team members with satisfactory credit reports and background checks are authorized signatories on escrow accounts. In addition, our closing and settlement employees are always learning more skills to do their jobs better and more efficiently.

Client Security is a Top Priority

Only authorized Community Title Services employees can access the non-public personal information (NPI) of our clients. But our security goes much further than that. If data is stored electronically, it is done only on our secure servers, and Community Title Services heavily restricts what information can be put on cell phones and portable storage devices to safeguard our clients’ information further.

Documents containing NPI is transmitted from our offices using a vendor specializing in the safe delivery of documents with encryption and password protection. Sensitive documents at all Community Title Services locations are promptly shredded and disposed of when they need to be discarded, and the company regularly tests and updates its Disaster Recovery Plan.

Community Title Services: Closing Experts

Closing documents for any Community Title Services deal must be submitted for recording within two business days of disbursement, according to company policy. Such documents are also to be submitted via eRecording when possible so that they can be tracked electronically throughout the transaction.

Striving for Perfection

Even after the deal is done, Community Title Services knows its job is not complete. All documents must be delivered to our clients as quickly as possible. Title policy production and delivery is done within 30 days and the insurer’s premium is delivered within 45 days.

Community Title Services knows that customers want their documents in a quick manner, and underwriters need their funds in a similarly quick fashion. Closing documents can be delivered electronically. Adopting appropriate procedures for the production, delivery, and remittance of title insurance policies ensures title companies meet their legal and contractual obligations. Plus, we think smooth delivery is great customer service too.

Community Title Services carries the insurance needed to ensure a financial capacity to stand behind our professional services, and we utilize a customer-friendly system to resolve any customer complaints if work ever falls short of our standards. We believe that a streamlined process for receiving and addressing consumer complaints is important to ensure that any instances of inadequate service doesn’t go unaddressed.