Alan

From David Lanaux 

RE: FLTA Agent Section Monthly Call 

10-2-12

Just in case we are having a vote and/or discussion, via the agents conference call tomorrow in regards to increasing the surety bond in Florida, I wish to share some comments. Not many people and/or agents know much about this surety bond increase that is being lobbied and/or proposed. I can’t imagine a vote over the phone being legal or binding but I suggest that either you vote no on this or not vote at all on this important matter. There has been no proposals sent out for our review as to what this “Bill”  would look like or what it states. If we don’t step back from this and take a hard look at the consequences of this legislation you will wake up one day like we did when the “butler rebate” was approved and ask yourself what happened?

I am not trying to create a problem but I have had a tough time getting any information on this proposed bill other than being requested to contribute to a lobby fund in support of a bill that has not been circulated yet. Personally I am not contributing to the lobby fund as I have every year, until I know what the agenda is! Has anyone seen this proposed bill? Does anyone recognize the down side to this proposed legislation? There are consequences to this kind of bill being passed. To many to be discussed here and now. If someone has a copy of the proposed legislation please forward it to me. If we do not have it yet, then why would anyone vote on whether or not to move forward on this. I believe to little information has been disseminated in this regard and I learned a long time ago, if it is hard to get answers to something, then chances are someone is hiding something.

I say all this respectfully, but from what I hear this “proposed” legislation may have some upsides to it, but it has also been discussed that the downsides may be life threatening for some smaller “quality agencies” already in existence. So think carefully before jumping into this please. We need to have a clear understanding as to what it is that we are trying to accomplish here.

 I’m not sure a message from Florida to the rest of the world that we need more self regulation is the kind of message we need to be sending out, especially when lenders are trying to have us use third party venders to do background checks on us. (Vetting the agents). Hope this stimulates some thought on this. Thank you.

David D. Lanaux
President
TITLE PROFESSIONALS OF FLORIDA
13241 University Dr. # 103
Fort Myers, Florida 33907
Phone: 239-433-2900
Fax: 239-433-0233
www.titleprosflorida.com

From Skipper Henderson
10-2-12

David,

    Thanks for the email. I agree. I am not the least bit interested in increasing the proposed surety bong requirement. If for no other reason, its going to cost more. I don't know about the rest of the title industry, but I'm finding it difficult to make ends meet. I am not supportive of anything that is going to increase my cost of doing business, surety, vetting, taxes, price of milk, bottled water, etc., etc. you get my drift.

    I just want everyone to stop trying to "help" me. The current government is do a good enough job putting me out of business, thank you very much.

    ROMNEY/RYAN 2012,

Skipper Henderson 

From Vince Cassidy
10-2-12

Reply coming very shortly.  I am glad people are getting engaged.

Regards,

 

Vincent J. Cassidy
President
Majesty Title Services, LLC
    “Where Service Reigns”

(813) 831-3885 X 110 Office
(813) 777-9748 Cell
(813) 868-3751 Fax 

NOTE OUR NEW ADDRESS:
4006 S. MacDill Avenue
Tampa, FL 33611
www.majestytitle.com

From Bob Booth
10-2-12

Experience & Credentials vs. Financial Investment & Net Worth

The more I ponder the concept of how to ‘raise the bar’ of title agents and supporting an effort to accomplish the goal by way of raising statutory requirements with regard to surety limits, the less convinced I am this is the wisest path to travel.

As agents we’re all business owners (many being small business owners) it seems counter-productive to be looking at ways to increase our cost to conduct business as we try to generate a profit; or to ways that’ll add additional costs to our customers without adding value to justify it.

Higher surety limits essentially only serve to protect underwriters from regretful decisions later realized; it won’t raise the bar, nor will it increase the professionalism of our industry.  These things can only be accomplished by way of education and higher standards of ethics; which if so breached result in severe penalty – financially and criminally.

At the end of the day if an underwriter is tempted to sign an agent/agency, but they’re leery for one reason or another, they already have the ability to demand additional assurances.  They can simply require additional bond or capital in escrow.  The limits set by statute are minimums, not maximums.

In order to achieve the goal of ‘raising the bar’ with respect to Florida Title Agents the 1st thing we must do is to change the focus of our conversation from title agent to title industry.

The hard facts are, there are no (or darn few) collegiate classes, and no title academy one can attend to learn the title profession, it’s OJT at its finest.  If we do truly wish to raise the bar we (as an industry) have to get back to considering years of experience, education & character, and those determinations need to be applied by, and should be made by the underwriters, not by state regulators.

It’s a slippery slope when the 1st motivation to sign an agency is based upon quick profit returns promised by someone who’s a good marketer, or who may know people, as oppose to someone who’s actually qualified.  We insure real estate, it’s more than location, it’s education, education, education.

 

PS: They're a lot of sharp minds out there, I'm sure others have ideas as to how we can raise the bar & improve our profession; give it some thought, let's work together to achieve that!

 

R.F. "Bob" Booth, Jr., C.L.S.
~ COMMUNITY LAND TITLE ~
A Full Service [Veteran Owned]
Florida Title Insurance Agency
2400 SE Veterans Memorial Pkwy
Suite 214 - [2nd Floor]
Port St. Lucie, Florida 34952
Office Phone: (772) 337-3335
www.CommunityLandTitle.net

From Beverly McReynolds
10-2-12

Bob,

Many good ideas here. Thank you!

We do have some of the best minds in our industry participating in this discussion and I am confident that we can find an acceptable direction if we all work together. I hope you will all be on the call tomorrow and I sincerely hope to see each of you at the convention where we can continue to face our challenges and craft solutions!

Beverly

 

Beverly McReynolds
President
North American Title Company
700 NW 107 Ave., Suite 100
Miami, FL 33172
305-229-6517
305-229-6559 Fax

From Vince Cassidy
10-2-12

David:   First, thank you for taking the time to express your thoughts.  We need more agents active in our industry association and certainly your email should get some folks thinking.  I would like to clarify a few things you wrote about.  There will be no vote taken on tomorrow’s agent call.  I do not know who told you that there would be.  There will only be a continuation of the discussion we have been having the last six months.

As far as legislation goes, since there is no definitive direction as to how we raise the bar, there is no legislation to pass around for comments.  I would recommend we come to an agreement first, and then pass along proposed legislation.  Nothing will be crammed down.

The movement to raise the bar was an action step based on national trends that where threatening the agent model.  With the onset of third party entities vetting agencies on behalf of lenders, we are seeing the first changes to affect the agent model.  The FLTA Agent section has tried to get ahead of these issues by trying to make the agents stronger so lenders wouldn’t have concerns with our viability (third party vetting tells me they have concerns about the current model).  “That classic  line comes to mind, “Either be at the table figuring this out, or be on the table.”

During our annual convention this Nov, we will have more discussion on “Raising the Bar.”  That will be a great time for more agents to come together to figure this out.  I look forwarding to seeing many of you there.

Finally, no decision has been made that I am aware of; just discussion has taken place to insure our model survives changes that are much bigger than FL.

Hi Rosa- answering below:

 

Hi Aaron,

Sure, it is embarrassing to us in the industry when we find a bad apple.

But Aaron, surety bonds protect the insurer only.

In the latest defalcation that you mention, did the consumer or lender lose any money?  How were they affected? ---They were not affected…this time. My point to this is how many more times can it occur until a lender the size of Bank of America makes a blanket decision to NOT do business with independent title agents in the state of Florida at all, and only directs- or for the agents on the “approved list” to have higher bonding requirements, limits, cash on hand, etc.

If the insurers want bigger bonds to cover their own losses from any bad apples that they let into  the business, I would think that they would buy additional insurance to cover  themselves and not place the burden on good agents with unnecessary expenses to compensate for the few bad apples. ---I fully agree with this statement, and wish my health insurance carriers would do the same, and not increase my rates if I am healthy, just because someone else on my plan or lives in my zip code has cancer or another health issue. Unfortunately as with ALL forms of insurance, the bad apples DO increase the rest of our costs. I wish also that other people will pay for the expenses, and costs of doing business. I’m sure over the years most of us were forced to raise our fees in some way because our COSTS increased (banks wiring fees, Fedex bills, etc.), and closing costs in general through statewide increases in doc stamps, recording fees and more. Those costs all ultimately affected the consumer. In this scenario- WE are the consumer, we are insurance sales professionals looking to continue to offer a product. (At least in DFS and OIR’s eyes. I know we are MUCH more than that, but unfortunately our legislators and the majority of the public have NO IDEA what we do, but that’s another discussion.)

If we choose on our own as business owners without regulation requirement to increase our professional liability insurance and fidelity bonds, that is good business on the agents part.--- I agree as well, it is good business. However I would rather make that decision myself NOW, by a token increase if nothing else, than not have a decision at all when a national lender makes that decision for us. And if/when they do, it wont be something subtle as a bond increase.

We as an association are not going to do anything that is not in OUR collective best interest, and in the best interest of our industry. So I ask you agents here on this email- if not higher bonding requirements, then what SPECIFICALLY would you suggest we do to send a message to our clients, our legislators, and our government that we WANT to raise the bar and set a higher precedent for our industry, because WE TOO are sick of seeing the bad seeds destroy our reputations as title professionals?