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About Kooky and Shaka →Title insurers in the United States wrote 13 per cent more premium in 2025 than the year before, according to a market segment report that the rating agency AM Best released on Monday 5 October 2026. The same report says its composite of title insurers recorded an 18 per cent year-over-year rise in direct premiums written through the first quarter of 2026.
The report carries the title "US Title Industry Remains Profitable Despite Persistent Housing and Affordability Challenges", and both halves of that title matter. AM Best found a segment that made money in 2025 and improved again at the start of 2026. It also recalls that it kept its negative outlook on the segment earlier in 2026, and it explains why a good year for premiums has not changed its view.
For title and escrow professionals, the report puts numbers on the past year: the work came back in 2025, but much of it came from refinancing, and refinancing depends on interest rates.
AM Best, Best's Market Segment Report on the US title industry, released 5 October 2026.
What AM Best found in the 2025 results
The headline figure is the 13 per cent rise in title insurance premiums across 2025. AM Best attributes it mainly to higher mortgage origination volume, and says that volume was driven by refinancing. Loan originations grew in the second half of 2025, the report adds, and commercial lending grew in particular.
Profit followed. AM Best puts the segment's 2025 underwriting gain at just under US$1 billion and its net income at US$1.2 billion.
The improvement carried into the new year. Through the first quarter of 2026, AM Best's title composite reported an 18 per cent year-over-year rise in direct premiums written. All of the key underwriting metrics improved compared with the first quarter of 2025, according to the report.
Related readSelling or buying Dubai property through a power of attorneyKourtnie Beckwith, a senior financial analyst at AM Best, said in the release that title insurers have shown the resilience of the segment. That is the profitable half of the report's title. The other half is about where the growth came from, and whether it can continue.
Why a profitable segment keeps a negative outlook
AM Best's reasoning runs through the mortgage market. Refinancing rebounded in 2025 as interest rates fell, the report says. Rates then climbed again in 2026, and the improvement did not last.
David Blades, associate director of industry research at AM Best, put it this way in the release: "At present, there is little enticement to refinance with rates remaining at current levels."
The second pressure is on home sales rather than refinancing. Ann Modica, a director of credit rating criteria, research and analytics at AM Best, pointed in the release to the reluctance of existing homeowners to give up mortgages taken out at lower rates.
Both points explain why the agency reads the 2025 figures with caution. By AM Best's own account, the premium rise of 2025 came mainly from mortgage origination volume, and that volume was driven by refinancing.
The agency kept its negative outlook on the segment earlier in 2026. It says it will reassess that outlook for 2027. The report released this week is therefore a description of where the segment stands, not a new decision on the outlook.
How the trade body's figures compare
AM Best's composite is one way to count the industry. The American Land Title Association, the trade body known as ALTA, publishes its own figures, and the most recent ones point the same way.
Related readWho handles the legal transfer of a property in Dubai?According to ALTA's second-quarter data, as reported by HousingWire on 23 September 2026, title insurance premiums reached US$5.3 billion in the second quarter of 2026, against US$4.5 billion in the second quarter of 2025. Volume for the first half of 2026 was 16.1 per cent higher than a year earlier.
The same data describes the industry's balance sheet. Total assets stood at US$12 billion, the statutory surplus at US$5.4 billion and reserves at US$5.8 billion. Claims paid in the first half of 2026 came to nearly US$327 million, HousingWire reported, compared with about US$336 million in the first half of 2025. Premiums grew, in other words, while the claims paid were slightly lower.
ALTA's news listing, read alongside its 5 October note on the AM Best report, gives the industry's net income for the quarter as US$322.9 million. It also lists the pretax income of four groups for that quarter: US$451 million for Fidelity, US$315.9 million for First American, US$55.9 million for Old Republic and US$48.6 million for Stewart.
These are quarterly figures from a trade association, while AM Best's cover the year 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 for its own composite, so the two sets are not directly comparable. Read together, they show the same direction: more premium in 2026 than in 2025, and an industry that remains in profit.
Who writes the policies, and where
The ALTA data reported by HousingWire also shows how concentrated title underwriting is. Five underwriters each held more than 10 per cent of the market in the second quarter of 2026, and together they wrote 76.3 per cent of it. The nine underwriters named in the report account for 90.0 per cent.
Related readNew South Wales conveyancers: licences, limits and costs disclosure| Underwriter | Market share |
|---|---|
| First American Title | 23.3% |
| Fidelity National Title | 15.8% |
| Chicago Title | 13.2% |
| Old Republic National Title | 13.1% |
| Stewart Title Guaranty | 10.9% |
| Westcor | 4.6% |
| Title Resources Guaranty | 3.3% |
| Commonwealth | 3.2% |
| WFG | 2.6% |
American Land Title Association second-quarter 2026 data, as reported by HousingWire on 23 September 2026.
The data also gives figures by state. Five states appear in the figures HousingWire reported, and their growth rates differ widely. Texas wrote the most premium but grew the least of the five, at 9.8 per cent. Florida rose 15.2 per cent, California 12.9 per cent and New York 18.7 per cent. Ohio, the smallest of the five by premium, grew by 60.1 per cent.
American Land Title Association data, as reported by HousingWire on 23 September 2026.
For a local title agency, the state figure says more than the national one. A national rise of 13 per cent, or 18 per cent, is an average of markets that moved at very different speeds.
What the product is, and why volume decides everything
The report is easier to read with the product in mind. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau describes two kinds of title policy in its consumer guidance. A lender's policy is usually required by the mortgage lender and covers the amount of the loan. An owner's policy is optional.
Buyers can usually shop for their title insurance
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says buyers can usually shop for title insurance separately, and that buying the lender's and the owner's policy from one provider is typically cheaper. The lender must provide the Closing Disclosure at least three business days before closing.
This is why refinancing weighs so heavily in AM Best's analysis. A lender's policy covers a loan, and AM Best ties the premium rise of 2025 to origination volume driven by refinancing. When rates climbed again in 2026, the agency says, the improvement did not last.
A purchase can involve both kinds of policy, since the lender usually requires one and the buyer may choose to take the other. Mr Blades's remark about refinancing and Ms Modica's about owners holding on to cheaper mortgages describe the two pressures the agency names.
The week's other title news
The AM Best report landed in a busy week for the trade.
Related readCaveats and title searches in a Singapore property purchaseOn Thursday 8 October, ALTA published Version 5.0 of its Best Practices framework for title and settlement companies. According to ALTA's announcement, the main change is an overhaul of the vendor management requirements, with strengthened guidance on cybersecurity, information security and regulatory compliance. The full item sits behind ALTA's member login, so the detail of the changes and any effective date could not be read.
A week earlier, on 1 October, ALTA reported that the model bulletin of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners on the use of artificial intelligence systems by insurers has been adopted by 24 states and Washington, DC. ALTA's summary says the bulletin calls for a written programme covering seven areas, among them the oversight of third-party vendors, data and models, and that it leaves insurers responsible for decisions supported by artificial intelligence.
On the technology side, HousingWire reported on 8 October that Compass International Holdings will move the title and escrow operations of its Compass Integrated Services companies onto Qualia's platform. The move replaces systems inherited through the merger with Anywhere Real Estate, HousingWire said, and extends a relationship that dates to 2023. No financial terms and no number of title companies were disclosed. When the move is complete, HousingWire reported, Qualia's footprint across the title companies of Compass Integrated Services will have grown more than fivefold.
There was also a deal in the Midwest. ALTA reported on 8 October that Kansas Secured Title Inc. has acquired Frazee Abstract and Title Inc., effective 1 October 2026, on undisclosed terms. The purchase adds nine counties in southwest Kansas, and all staff are retained, according to ALTA. Frazee has offices in Syracuse and Ulysses. Kansas Secured Title is a subsidiary of Title Midwest Inc., which has offices in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, and whose chief operating officer is quoted by ALTA as calling it the group's first expansion into western Kansas.
What comes next
Several dates are already fixed. ALTA ONE runs from 12 to 15 October in Scottsdale, Arizona. The first Compass title company is scheduled to go live on Qualia on 12 October, HousingWire reported, with more to follow through 2027.
ALTA will host a webinar on the AM Best report on Tuesday 17 November, from 1 pm to 2 pm Eastern time, with Ms Beckwith and Ms Modica as speakers. Both analysts are quoted in the AM Best release.
The larger question is the outlook itself. AM Best has said it will reassess its view of the title segment for 2027. The release points to three things: the level of mortgage rates, the appetite to refinance and the willingness of existing owners to sell.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
