Who are the "big four" title companies?
Fidelity National Financial, First American, Old Republic and Stewart. Between them they underwrite most of the title insurance written in the United States, and Fidelity alone issues under Chicago Title, Fidelity National Title and Commonwealth. They are insurers. The office that closes your deal is usually not one of them; it is an agent that issues a policy on one of those companies' paper, the way a local insurance agent writes a homeowner's policy backed by a national carrier. Vanderpool Law issues its policies through underwriters in the national top ten, chosen after a hard look at one thing above all: whether they hold the reserves to pay your claim if you ever have one.
Which name is on the policy matters less than people think, because the policy is a regulated product and the premium is the insurer's filed rate. Who closes your deal, and whether that office is allowed to be on your side, matters a great deal more. Vanderpool Law is: send us the contract, before you sign or after.
Think about your homeowner's insurance. It may be underwritten by State Farm, but State Farm isn't your agent. Your agent is local, someone you can call. The underwriter is the company that pays when hail takes the roof. Title insurance works the same way: the underwriter backs the policy and pays a covered claim; the agent is the office down the road that searches the title, closes the deal and issues the policy on the underwriter's paper.
Tenn. Code Ann. § 56-35-102 (a title insurance agent acts for a title insurer under an agency agreement); the premium is the underwriter's rate filed with the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance.Backs the policy
Sets the filed rate, writes the policy terms, holds the reserves, and pays a covered claim: a forged deed in the chain, an unknown heir, an unreleased lien. You will rarely talk to it. Its name is on the policy.
Closes the deal
Searches the record, clears what it finds, prepares and records the documents, holds and disburses the money, and issues the policy. This is the office you choose on the contract, and the one whose duties to you are the whole question.
"Direct operations": when the underwriter is also the office
In Tennessee, the big four also run their own closing offices, called direct operations, so the company whose name is on the policy can also be the company closing your deal. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't change what you're getting: a company-owned title office is a title company, and it cannot give you legal advice any more than an independent one can. The policy is the same product either way.
So when someone tells you "we're with Chicago Title" or "First American backs us," hear it for what it is: a statement about who pays a claim, not about who represents you. We chose our underwriters the way you'd choose an insurer for anything you can't afford to lose. We looked at each one, and the first thing we looked at was its reserves: the money set aside to pay claims, measured against the claims it could face. Top-ten size, a long record of paying, and reserves that can carry a bad year. The policy you get from Vanderpool Law is issued on that paper, at the filed rate, with the lender's policy alongside it at the simultaneous rate, and the attorney closing your file works for you. Same premium as anywhere else, a company behind it that can pay, and Vanderpool Law reading your contract before you sign and sitting on your side of the table at closing.
The name on the policy pays the claim. The name on the contract decides who's on your side. Write in Vanderpool Law.