We’ve Come a Long Way, Folks
By: Elyce Schweitzer,Regulatory Compliance Officer, Alliant National Title Insurance Company
For most homebuyers, even five years ago, the experience was familiar: a conference room, a stack of papers taller than a coffee cup, and an aching wrist from signing your name what felt like 437 times. Title insurance—essential though it is—was part of that long, paperwork-heavy ritual. Fast forward to present day, and the industry is in the middle of a transformation. Over the last several years, title insurance has quietly gone digital, automated, and even futuristic in some places. Let’s take a tour of what’s changed.
Digital Closings: Say Goodbye to the Paper Stack
Picture this: instead of driving across town to a title agency or a lawyer’s office, you’re sitting in your living room, coffee in hand, while a notary verifies your identity over video. Consumers sign documents electronically, and the county records the deed the same day.
This isn’t science fiction—it’s now reality in most states.
- Remote notarization (signing over video with an online notary) is legal in almost every state.
- eMortgages with their digital “eNotes” represent loans which big players like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac happily purchase on the secondary market. The GSEs now publish clear rulebooks spelling out when they’ll accept full digital closings, partial digital closings, or traditional paper.
This consistency has made it much easier for lenders and title companies to modernize without fear of rejection.
- According to Simplifile eRecording Network, electronic recording is available in 2,607 counties nationwide, so the “waiting for the mail” stage is nearly gone, and the time it takes to run over to the courthouse can be better spent on other essential title agent tasks. The number of counties accepting electronic recording is only going to continue to grow.
The result? A process that once required customers to drive across town with pen in hand now happens through a few clicks and a video call.
Artificial Intelligence: The New Title Assistant
Artificial intelligence (AI) has found its way into title insurance too—and not in a creepy “robot lawyer” way.
- Computers can now scan public records in minutes to spot simple cases that used to take days.
- Smart assistants help staff open orders, draft commitments, pull tax information, and vesting deeds and even write emails.
- Connected systems cut down on the mind-numbing retyping of names and addresses into multiple platforms.
This doesn’t mean human players in the process have been replaced. Instead, it frees up title professionals to focus on the tricky stuff—like unraveling messy ownership histories or catching hidden liens—while the software handles the repetitive grunt work.
Battling Fraudsters: Keeping Closings Safe
Whenever money moves, crooks are never far behind. Real estate closings are still prime targets because they involve large sums of money. The industry has responded with new layers of armor:
- Wire fraud protections. Verification tools double-check bank account info before money is sent.
- Fake-seller scams. Fraudsters pretending to own vacant land are being stopped by tougher ID checks and stricter notary rules and processes.
- Multi-step identity proofing. Online notarization often requires scanning your ID, answering “Knowledge Based Authentication” security questions, and even facial recognition.
- Guidance from industry associations, regulators and stakeholders. All of these stakeholders have ramped up their messaging, education, and training efforts to combat fraud. Delivering the information electronically through email, webpages, eNewsletters, webinars, social media, and other modern methods make it widely accessible for all participants in the industry. Tip: check out the recent update to ALTA’s Best Practices Pillars, adding new Section 4.2 which recommends every title and settlement company create and implement an Identity Fraud Prevention Program.
Buying a home will always be stressful, but with today’s safeguards, agents can help ensure their clients’ funds don’t end up in the wrong hands.
Instant Money: No More “Hurry Up and Wait”
Remember when Friday closings meant sitting on pins and needles waiting for the funds to “clear”? That’s changing. We now have the technology with FedNow and RTP instant payment systems that can move money immediately, instead of waiting hours or days.
State laws are slow to catch up, but they are making progress. For example, as of January 1, 2026, Kansas Statute s. 40-1137(c)(6) adds “a real-time or instant payment through the FedNow service … or the clearing house … real-time payments (RTP) system” to the list of permissible closing funds; also check out Nebraska’s recent amendment embracing FedNow and RTP as “good funds” (R.R.S. Neb. § 76-2,121(2)) and Missouri’s amendment redefining “certified funds” to include FedNow and RTP (§ 381.410 R.S.Mo.). Where statutes were once either clearly prohibitive or ambiguous about permitting instant payments, states may be on the verge of a legislative trend to support the new capabilities. We can now foresee a near future where buyers and sellers don’t have to twiddle their thumbs waiting for wires and aren’t relegated to closing during traditional banking hours of Monday through Friday, 9 to 5.
The Bottom Line: Closings Go Digital
Five years ago, buying a house meant stacks of paper, endless signatures, and waiting days for documents to be recorded and funds to clear. Today, in many markets, you can buy a house in your pajamas, sign over a video call, and have everything official by dinnertime.
The title insurance industry may not be glamorous, but it’s quietly embracing the digital age—making closings faster, safer, more accessible, efficient and (dare we say it) a little less painful for the customer.
