Resources · Q&A
Questions, answered — from the white paper.
The case for Pre-Policy Intelligence℠, made conversational. Every answer is drawn from the white paper and its sources — and IRIS℠ answers the same way when you ask her.
The case for Pre-Policy Intelligence℠, made conversational. Every answer is drawn from the white paper and its sources — and IRIS℠ answers the same way when you ask her.
Because the title search is the only diligence workstream in a real estate transaction that is customarily ordered after the decision it is supposed to inform. Every other workstream — inspection, appraisal, underwriting — starts on day one. Title has been the exception, and the exception is no longer defensible. Pre-Policy Intelligence℠ moves the search to day one, where its findings can still change the decision.
Everything downstream. Lenders underwrite against a known record instead of assumptions. Attorneys advise with the full file at engagement. Buyers and investors commit with clarity. Problems surface with runway to solve them — not against a closing date.
No — and it cannot be. Title premiums are regulated state by state; no one may add to them. The $149 pays for the search and examination itself, performed at the start of your transaction instead of the end. Close with an Intelligent Title policy and the $149 is credited against your premium in full. Do not proceed, and you still have the completed examination. The decision to go forward is always yours. The information is yours either way.
That is the common assumption, and the industry's own numbers reverse it. Only about four cents of the title premium dollar ever pays a claim — in 2025, $32 per policy in direct losses against $1,367 per policy in net premiums earned. The rest pays for the search, the examination, and the curative work that make claims rare. The value of title insurance is realized before closing; the $149 simply delivers that value on day one.
Fraud is essentially a timing attack. The share of title firms reporting at least one seller-impersonation attempt rose from 28 percent in a 2024 survey to 59 percent in a 2026 study, and FBI IC3 real-estate losses climbed from $145.2 million in 2023 to $275.1 million in 2025. Fraud that depends on an owner not being verified is defeated by verifying the owner early, while there is still time to act.
Generative tools have devalued the document. FinCEN has reported criminals using generative AI to produce falsified identification, photographs, and video, and 58 percent of title professionals now rate deepfake technology as at least somewhat common in impersonation attempts. When a document can be manufactured in minutes, the durable asset is the chain of examined, sourced, dated evidence behind it — which is exactly what an early examination builds.
No. Automation is a retrieval gain, not a judgment gain. IRIS℠ retrieves, organizes, and moves the record around the clock; the underwriting judgment — the indemnity decision — sits with Stewart Title Guaranty Company and WFG National Title Insurance Company, whose balance sheets and regulatory standing are a matter of public record. A dedicated title closer owns your file from open to close.
The deal goes forward without the information. Industry research finds 36 percent of files require substantial, non-routine curative work — discovered, in the old sequence, at day 30 or 45, when there is no runway left. That is where delayed closings, re-trades, blown rate locks, and failed transactions come from. The deal does not pause for the missing information; it closes without it.
It was, when there was no alternative. The alternative now exists, costs $149, and is credited in full at closing. Once the exception is no longer defensible, absorbing the cost anyway stops being a custom and starts being a choice.
It depends on your seat in the transaction. SBA borrowers: the letter of intent. Institutional lenders: the rate lock. Attorneys: the engagement. Investors and creative-finance buyers: the signed offer. DSCR and hard-money borrowers: the term sheet. Mortgage originators: the application. CDCs: the project authorization. Buyers and owners: the signed contract. Whatever your seat, the rule is the same — the decision deserves the information.