No one enjoys paying for insurance. We are simply grateful it is there when a fire, accident, or other crisis threatens something we cannot afford to lose.
A home deserves the same common-sense approach.
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Recent polling highlighted by the Washington Examiner found overwhelming support for reducing title insurance costs when homeowners refinance. That result is hardly surprising. Ask Americans whether they want lower mortgage costs, grocery bills, or energy prices, and nearly everyone will say yes.
But context matters.
The more meaningful question is whether homeowners would support modest savings at closing if they understood that those savings risk protection against fraud, forgery, unknown liens, ownership disputes, and potentially devastating legal expenses.
Their answers might be very different.
Refinancing can help families lower monthly payments, access home equity, or improve their financial position. But a refinance is not risk-free simply because the homeowner already owns the property.
Problems can arise at any point during ownership. A fraudulent document may be recorded. A prior mortgage may remain unreleased. A tax lien, judgment, or competing ownership claim may surface. For homeowners, these are not technical problems. They can mean frozen equity, overwhelming legal bills, and, in the worst cases, foreclosure or the loss of their home.
This is an especially dangerous time to weaken protections. According to the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report, real estate fraud complaints increased 32% year over year, while reported losses surged 58%. At a time when these schemes are becoming more frequent and costly, policymakers should be strengthening the safeguards surrounding Americans’ homes — not removing them.
Fraud is unaffordable.
A 2025 independent analysis by Milliman found that fraud and forgery account for approximately 40% of title claim costs associated with refinance transactions. The average refinance fraud and forgery claim exceeds $206,000.
Few families could absorb a loss of that size. Removing title insurance does not make risk disappear. It simply changes who bears the consequences when something goes wrong.
Americans’ wallets are strained, and the housing industry must continue finding responsible ways to lower costs. The title industry has been doing exactly that. A recent First American analysis found that technology, competition, and process improvements have helped reduce the real cost of title coverage by 32% while maintaining consumer protections.
Innovation and protection are not competing goals. We can achieve both.
Title protection works in two ways. First, title professionals identify and resolve problems before closing. A study this year by the American Land Title Association and ndp | analytics found that 59% of refinance transactions require the review of 11 or more documents.
Second, title insurance provides financial protection and legal resources when a hidden problem emerges after closing, and an ordinary family has no realistic way to handle it alone.
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Policymakers should focus on the rising costs of homeownership. But title insurance is essential, and removing this important safeguard against catastrophic losses is bad policy for both homeowners and the real estate ecosystem. The goal should be to make transactions more affordable without weakening the protections that make homeownership secure or shifting greater risk to consumers.
Americans deserve confidence that their equity, property rights, and homes will remain protected when something goes wrong.
Chris Morton is CEO of the American Land Title Association, the national trade association representing the land title insurance industry.