Good Afternoon —
We are still in the midst of earnings season and to add some spice (and greater context) to these earnings reports, today, we are going to take a look at the American Land Title Association's full-year and fourth-quarter 2021 market share analysis, which the trade group released on Friday. While it's great to see how the individual title firms are doing each quarter, I find it even more fascinating to see how the revenue, income and title-orders-opened numbers translate to overall market share.
The top underwriters by market share in 2021 included First American Title Insurance Co., with 20.5%, Old Republic National Title Insurance Co., with 14.8%, Chicago Title Insurance Co., with 14%, Fidelity National Title Insurance, with 13.5% and Stewart Title Guaranty Co., with 8.9%.
It should be noted, however, that Chicago Title is part of Fidelity, which ended 2020 as the largest company by share of premiums written, with 33.9% of the market.
Stewart, which finished 2021 with a bit of an acquisition spree, has been looking to reclaim some of the title premium it has lost in recent years. (In 2019, Stewart's market share for the year was 10.62%.) After recording a market share of 8.2% during the third quarter of 2021, it is interesting to see that Stewart's market share for the year appears to be on its way back up. However, it remains below its full-year 2020 level of 9.6%.
The rest of 2021's top 10 was composed of Westcor Land Title Insurance Co. with 5.9% market share; Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Co. with 4.1%; WFG National Title Insurance Co. with 2.8%; Title Resources Guaranty Co. with 2.4%; and Doma Title Insurance Co. with 1.9%.
North American Title Insurance Co., which held 2.1% of the market during the third quarter of 2021, was ousted from the year's top 10 by Doma. It's a big victory for the company, led by Max Simkoff, as it has so far yet to report a profitable quarter (but stay tuned: Doma's Q1 2022 earnings will be released Tuesday).
Although the Big Four still command the overwhelming majority of the market with a combined market share of 71.1%, their grip appears to be slipping. In 2019, independent title underwriters, like Westcor, WFG and others, had a combined market share of 14.99% compared to 28.9% in 2021.
While there is no denying that 2021 was a strong year for title insurers and underwriters, the title industry is facing quite a few challenges this year, as refinance volume decreases due to rising mortgage rates, housing inventory remains low and more homebuyers are priced out of the market. It will be interesting to see who will end up grabbing more market share in this environment. If you have any thoughts on this you would like to share, feel free to email me at brooklee@hwmedia.com.
Until Next Week,
Brooklee Han
Real Estate and Title Industry Reporter
brooklee@hwmedia.com
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