Cozy relationships between title insurance companies and real estate agents, builders and lenders, and the question of who ends up with premium dollars were at the heart of a four-hour public hearing in Tallahassee on Thursday as Florida regulators began to pull back the curtain on the little-known title insurance business.
The goal: To determine how extensively Florida should regulate the industry.
Facing regulators were representatives of the nine companies that write most of the title insurance in the state. The companies were sent subpoenas this month in response to studies that found, among other things, that Florida homeowners are paying premiums as much as 136 percent higher than in neighboring states, that industry profits rose by 368 percent from 1995 to 2004, and that in 2004, only 3 cents of every $1 of premium paid was spent to cover losses.