The American Title Insurance Industry

The American Title Insurance Industry
Author: Joseph W Eaton
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2007-08-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0814722466

After World War II, banks and other mortgage lenders began requiring insurance to protect them against flawed or defective real estate titles. Over the past sixty years, the title insurance industry has grown steadily in size, power, and secrecy: policies are available for both lenders and property owners and many title insurers offer an array of other real estate services, such as escrow and appraisal. Yet details about the industry’s operational procedures remain closely guarded from public exposure. In The American Title Insurance Industry, Joseph and David Eaton present evidence that improvements in recordkeeping over the last sixty years—particularly the advent of computers—have reduced the likelihood of a defective title going unnoticed in a property transaction. But the industry’s flaws run deeper than mere obsolescence: in most states, title insurers are allowed to engage in anticompetitive business practices, including price-fixing. Among the findings in this meticulously researched study are instances of insurers charging premiums well above the amount necessary to compensate them for assuming the risk of defect and identical policies with identical risk that vary in price by hundreds of percentage points for different geographic locations. The authors also examine the widely ignored role that the federal and most state governments play in perpetuating the title insurance industry’s unfair practices. Whereas most private industries prefer as little government intervention as possible, title insurers welcome it. Federal statue exempts title insurers from anti-trust liability, opening the door for price-fixing and destroying any semblance of free-market competition or market power for consumers. A landmark study for elected officials, and all those involved in the insurance, real estate, and brokerage industries, The American Title Insurance Industry brings to light a long-neglected problem—and offers suggestions for how it might be remedied.

Fundamentals of Title Insurance

Fundamentals of Title Insurance
Author: James L. Gosdin
Publisher: American Bar Association
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781627227018

A broad yet thorough overview, this book explains the basic elements of title insurance and gives attorneys and real estate professionals the practical knowledge and tools to counsel and protect their clients. Written in an accessible style, it explains what title insurance means, what it can and cannot do, and what can be asked for in a real estate transaction. It provides examples, practice pointers, charts and checklists to explain key points. It covers all relevant topics, including a general background of title insurance, its variations and common features, typical title insurance coverage and issues; explanations of the 2006 ALTA Loan Policy and the 2006 ALTA Owner's Policy, and much more.

Title Insurance

Title Insurance
Author: James L. Gosdin
Publisher: Real Prop, Trust, Estate ABA
Total Pages: 730
Release: 2000
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Revised edition of : Title insurance / James L. Gosdin. c1996.

Investing in Life

Investing in Life
Author: Sharon Ann Murphy
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2010-10-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0801899478

A study of the early years of the life insurance industry in 19th century America. Investing in Life considers the creation and expansion of the American life insurance industry from its early origins in the 1810s through the 1860s and examines how its growth paralleled and influenced the emergence of the middle class. Using the economic instability of the period as her backdrop, Sharon Ann Murphy also analyzes changing roles for women; the attempts to adapt slavery to an urban, industrialized setting; the rise of statistical thinking; and efforts to regulate the business environment. Her research directly challenges the conclusions of previous scholars who have dismissed the importance of the earliest industry innovators while exaggerating clerical opposition to life insurance. Murphy examines insurance as both a business and a social phenomenon. She looks at how insurance companies positioned themselves within the marketplace, calculated risks associated with disease, intemperance, occupational hazard, and war, and battled fraud, murder, and suicide. She also discusses the role of consumers?their reasons for purchasing life insurance, their perceptions of the industry, and how their desires and demands shaped the ultimate product. Winner, Hagley Prize in Business History, Hagley Museum and Library and the Business History Conference Praise for Investing in Life “A well-written, well-argued book that makes a number of important contributions to the history of business and capitalism in antebellum America.” —Sean H. Vanatta, Common Place “An intriguing, instructive history of the establishment and development of the life insurance industry that reveals a good deal about changing social and commercial conditions in antebellum America . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice

Delay, Deny, Defend

Delay, Deny, Defend
Author: Jay M. Feinman
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2010-03-18
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1101196289

An expose of insurance injustice and a plan for consumers and lawmakers to fight it Over the last two decades, insurance has become less of a safety net and more of a spider's web: sticky and complicated, designed to ensnare as much as to aid. Insurance companies now often try to delay payment of justified claims, deny payment altogether, and defend these actions by forcing claimants to enter litigation. Jay M. Feinman, a legal scholar and insurance expert, explains how these trends developed, how the government ought to fix the system, and what the rest of us can do to protect ourselves. He shows that the denial of valid claims is not occasional or accidental or the fault of a few bad employees. It's the result of an increasing and systematic focus on maximizing profits by major companies such as Allstate and State Farm. Citing dozens of stories of victims who were unfairly denied payment, Feinman explains how people can be more cautious when shopping for policies and what to do when pursuing a disputed claim. He also lays out a plan for the legal reforms needed to prevent future abuses. This exposé will help drive the discussion of this increasingly hot- button issue.

Insurance Era

Insurance Era
Author: Caley Horan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2021-06-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 022678441X

Charts the social and cultural life of private insurance in postwar America, showing how insurance institutions and actuarial practices played crucial roles in bringing social, political, and economic neoliberalism into everyday life. Actuarial thinking is everywhere in contemporary America, an often unnoticed byproduct of the postwar insurance industry’s political and economic influence. Calculations of risk permeate our institutions, influencing how we understand and manage crime, education, medicine, finance, and other social issues. Caley Horan’s remarkable book charts the social and economic power of private insurers since 1945, arguing that these institutions’ actuarial practices played a crucial and unexplored role in insinuating the social, political, and economic frameworks of neoliberalism into everyday life. Analyzing insurance marketing, consumption, investment, and regulation, Horan asserts that postwar America’s obsession with safety and security fueled the exponential expansion of the insurance industry and the growing importance of risk management in other fields. Horan shows that the rise and dissemination of neoliberal values did not happen on its own: they were the result of a project to unsocialize risk, shrinking the state’s commitment to providing support, and heaping burdens upon the people often least capable of bearing them. Insurance Era is a sharply researched and fiercely written account of how and why private insurance and its actuarial market logic came to be so deeply lodged in American visions of social welfare.

Deadly Spin

Deadly Spin
Author: Wendell Potter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2010-11-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1608193500

That's how Wendell Potter introduced himself to a Senate committee in June 2009. He proceed to explain how insurance companies make promises they have no intention of keeping, how they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and how they make it nearly impossible to understand information that the public needs. Potter quit his high-paid job as head of public relations at a major insurance corporation because he could no longer abide the routine practices of the insurance industry, policies that amounted to a death sentence for thousands of Americans every year. In Deadly Spin, Potter takes readers behind the scenes of the insurance industry to show how a huge chunk of our absurd healthcare expenditures actually bankrolls a propaganda campaign and lobbying effort focused on protecting one thing: profits. With the unique vantage of both a whistleblower and a high-powered former insider, Potter moves beyond the healthcare crisis to show how public relations works, and how it has come to play a massive, often insidious role in our political process-and our lives. This important and timely book tells Potter's remarkable personal story, but its larger goal is to explain how people like Potter, before his change of heart, can get the public to think and act in ways that benefit big corporations-and the Wall Street money managers who own them.

The Price We Pay

The Price We Pay
Author: Marty Makary
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2019-09-10
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1635574129

New York Times bestseller Business Book of the Year--Association of Business Journalists From the New York Times bestselling author comes an eye-opening, urgent look at America's broken health care system--and the people who are saving it--now with a new Afterword by the author. "A must-read for every American." --Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief, FORBES One in five Americans now has medical debt in collections and rising health care costs today threaten every small business in America. Dr. Makary, one of the nation's leading health care experts, travels across America and details why health care has become a bubble. Drawing from on-the-ground stories, his research, and his own experience, The Price We Pay paints a vivid picture of the business of medicine and its elusive money games in need of a serious shake-up. Dr. Makary shows how so much of health care spending goes to things that have nothing to do with health and what you can do about it. Dr. Makary challenges the medical establishment to remember medicine's noble heritage of caring for people when they are vulnerable. The Price We Pay offers a road map for everyday Americans and business leaders to get a better deal on their health care, and profiles the disruptors who are innovating medical care. The movement to restore medicine to its mission, Makary argues, is alive and well--a mission that can rebuild the public trust and save our country from the crushing cost of health care.