What does title insurance underwriter do?

A title insurance underwriter is a professional who is employed in a title insurance company and works to do the title check to validate the ownership and the line of title of a property involved in a purchase transaction or a mortgage refinance.

The title insurance underwriter has a number of responsibilities and duties:

• The main focus of the job of a title insurance underwriter is to ensure that there is nothing in the ownership chain that will put the current ownership in question. The underwriter will search whether all the transfers of property were done legally and that no acts of fraud or forgery and no omitted heirs are involved in the transaction.
• The underwriter also checks whether there are existing liens for the property.
• The title insurance underwriter is responsible to ensure that the title is, indeed, insurable by the title insurance company and that, based on current public records, there are no defects that will cause a claim to be raised against the current owner of the property.
• As such the title insurance underwriter will also provide his professional opinion as to the status of the title, and to be ready to defend the owner (and the insured) should there be any undiscovered legal issues with regards to the title.
• The title insurance underwriters will check public documents - deeds, wills, birth and marriage certificates, etc. as he does the title search. After the search, the title insurance underwriter may also list down exclusions to the policy, which may include easements, encroachments, zoning laws and other related government regulations and restrictions.

To be a title insurance underwriter, it is best that you have a background on law and real estate, as there may be complicated cases where these backgrounds will prove to be useful.

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