Title Insurers, Lenders Reach Agreement
Large title insurance companies such as Fidelity National Financial Inc. and First American Financial Corp. have decided against requiring banks to indemnify title insurers from foreclosure errors in all deals, but they may require indemnification in some cases.

"There was not enough consensus both within the lender community and title-insurer community to go [the way of total indemnification]," says Peter Sadowski, Fidelity's chief legal officer.

Kurt Pfotenhauer, CEO of the trade organization American Land Title Association, says as long as title insurers continue to have confidence in traditional lender underwriting, indemnification won’t be necessary. But that could change if "there were further dramatic revelations of systemic problems," he adds.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Nick Timiraos (10/29/2010)