You know that title search matters. Get it wrong, and you end up with errors and omissions that lead to insurance payouts and clients who thought they owned property but they don’t.
But have you ever considered the cost of a flawed title search process? What if the results are correct, but the process is wrong? What does it cost you to delay the closing or endlessly search for results?
A process that doesn’t support you or that isn’t built to give you the information you need when you need it can end up costing you a fortune. We have identified 7 hidden costs of poor title search.
7. Direct Monetary Cost
This one is simple: a bad process or a searcher who “ghosts” you in the process can force you to hire someone else to do the job. If you hire multiple searchers, pay fees, and repeat work you think you have already completed, this can cost you cash.
Paying two or three times for the same title search is rare, but it does happen, and these extra fees add up over time. If it hasn’t happened to you, you should hear the horror stories we hear. Title searchers who disappear and incomplete abstracts can be expensive.
How do you avoid this? Get it done right on time, the first time.
But this isn’t even the biggest cost; the more insidious ones are the costs that you don’t even see.
6. Productivity cost of having to follow up
Productivity is pretty simple. Input (hours of labor) leads to output (goods or services produced). You want your input focused on output and for output to increase for the same amount of input.
Or, in other words, if your people aren’t working on getting stuff done, they get less stuff done. And if they have to check on title searches continuously: making phone calls, texting, emailing, tracking people down, waiting for callbacks that never come, they are not getting stuff done.
Even worse, the loss is significantly more than the time spent on follow-up.
The problem is mental switching costs. Psychologists tell us that task-switching is expensive in terms of input.
In fact, the mental juggling act we call “multi-tasking” (a misnomer, as people can only perform one task at a time) comes with a “switching cost” that can add up to a 40% loss in productivity over the course of a day.
If employees have to continuously switch from their usual tasks to follow up on a bad title search process, it costs you productivity and drags the company down.
The solution: a report at your fingertips with the status of all of your title searches, available when you want it, reliable, and without hours of follow up.
5. Closing Delays
A problem with your title search often leads to a delayed closing.
You have to negotiate with the courts, find new times with clients, and maybe even repeat the search process. Delays can lead to deals falling through and lost opportunity. But they also lead to productivity issues: if your people are rescheduling, they are not working on new business.
(And if there is still a problem? You’ll start to feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Sure, things worked out for him eventually…but only after spending between ten and ten thousand years in a time loop.)
How do you avoid this? With title search that is scheduled and on time.
4. Opportunity Cost
Market size for the title insurance industry is rapidly increasing, with more opportunities for growth on the horizon. Your team can take advantage of that growth, but not if they are busy repeating work, rescheduling closings, or following up.
While you struggle with the complications that resulted from that bad title search, your competitors will be out there taking on new business and developing new clients.
Opportunity is the actual productivity cost: all of the deals you could have had but missed. They are out there, but you need the time to pursue them.
How do you capture more of what is out there? You need a predictable, transparent title search process.
3. Cost of Reformatting
As anyone who has had to deal with older documentation can tell you, document reproduction has come a long way. Gone are the days of the purple, ink-saturated mimeograph copy…but not for title searchers!
It gets worse. If you’ve ever had to retype a photocopy of a photocopy of a mimeograph that looks like it was printed underwater, you know how bad that can be.
Are you constantly reformatting unreadable documents to make them look presentable? That’s time, productivity, and opportunity that your company won’t get back.
The solution: well-formatted, presentable abstracts that you don’t have to reformat or retype.
2. Mental Cost
As a company’s productivity, opportunity, and profitability suffer, so does employee morale. Increased stress, decreased work-life balance, the disruption of everyday systems, and greater pressure on leadership can contaminate company culture.
In turn, this will compound the pre-existing issues in your organization and stymie your ability to do what you do best, selling more title insurance.
Oh, and you don’t get a vacation.
Solve this with a title search process that works for you efficiently and effectively.
1. Cost of Finding New Searchers
Finally, after going through a bad process, you may need a new searcher in that market who will deliver a better result.
Or what if you need to search in a new market – how do you find someone who is reliable and who won’t waste your time.
That’s not easy, and your success may vary between different markets. If you find a searcher you trust in Ohio, for example, you may still struggle to find someone reliable in Indiana.
What’s more, even once you’ve found a searcher, you still need to onboard them. And if they don’t work out? You’ll have to start all over again.
What you need is a good search process that covers all of the markets you cover.
Pippin Title Can Help
It’s straightforward: With Pippin Title, you won’t have bad title searches. We are responsive, reliable, and we leverage technology to simplify the process and keep you informed.
What we offer is title search that is:
- Done right, on time, the first time.
- Trackable through reports at your fingertips with the status of all of your title searches, available when you want it, reliably and without hours of follow-up.
- Scheduled and on time.
- Predictable and transparent.
- Well-formatted and presentable.
- Efficient and effective.
- In all of the markets you need
It’s just that simple. If you want a clear title search that makes your life easier, give us a try, click here for a demo, or click here to set up your free account.
Learn More About Pippin
Streamline your workflow and eliminate the hassles of title search with Pippin Title. To find out more about Pippin, contact us today or give us a call at 646-666-5993.
