Title Insurance Services

Protect Your Family's Largest Investment

Whether it's the initial investment you made in good faith or demonstrable lost earning potential, title insurance can help you recover, recoup, and move on. Contact Stearns & Hammer today and have one of our attorneys conduct a thorough title search to make sure you and your loved ones are getting exactly what you want out of your real estate purchase.

Watch the videos below to learn more about title insurance, then call Stearns & Hammer and make sure your next real estate purchase is protected.

How Title Insurance Protects Your Largest Investment

Take a look at how examples of how title insurance protects your largest financial investment. For over a century title professionals have worked to ensure that when you buy a property, you have peace of mind that your property is protected.

Rock Star Protection - Get Owner's Title Insurance

After Janie cashed in her life savings to purchase the home of her music idol, she later discovered that her ownership rights were in question because the seller wasn't the real Mickey Rose. He was an imposter who "took the money and ran."

Because Janie didn't have an owner's policy of title insurance, she was left unprotected.

Lincoln Lost His Home, Twice

Abraham Lincoln is well known for being our 16th president and a resident of Illinois, but his story starts in Kentucky - where he was born and from where his family was forced to move due to land title issues. Today we remember Lincoln for the freedoms he protected, not for the homes his family lost. But what happened to the Lincolns could happen to anyone. That's why since 1876, title insurance has been protecting property owners.

Will You Be Protected? Title Insurance and Ownership

Your home might be new to you, but every property has a past, and issues within that past could affect your ownership rights. Find out how an owner's policy of title insurance can help protect your investment.

View a list of more than 70 ways you could lose your property. 

What is Title Insurance?

So what exactly is "title insurance"? Well, when a property is financed, bought, or sold, a record of that transaction is generally filed in public archives. Likewise, records of other events that may affect the ownership of a property, like liens or levies, are also archived. When you buy title insurance for your property, a title company searches these records to find - and remedy, if possible - several types of ownership issues. 

First, the title company searches public records to determine the property's ownership status. After this search, the underwriter will determine the insurability of the title. Even the most skilled title professionals may not find all problems associated with a property, though. Some risks, such as title issues due to filing errors, forgeries, or undisclosed heirs, are difficult to identify. So after the title company finishes its searching, it also provides an insurance title policy that will help protect you from a variety of issues that might be uncovered later. If you take out a mortgage loan when you buy your property, your lender will require a loan policy of title insurance. This protects the lender's interest in your property until your loan is paid off or refinanced. 

On the other hand, an owner's policy of title insurance insures your ownership rights to the property. Even though you'll pay for this policy only once, your coverage will last as long as you own your home. A real estate purchase may be the largest financial investment you ever make. So, when you buy an owner's policy of title insurance, just think of it as buying some peace of mind!