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We do this from time to time in the settlement services industry.  A negative article runs in INSERT YOUR FAVORITE MAINSTREAM, CORPORATE-OWNED PUBLICATION HERE which glibly mentions the surprise of a settlement services fee, the injustice of a HUD-1 which looks little like the GFE provided weeks ago or the poor attitude of the closer at the table.  Suddenly, a few who don’t actually do real closings spring up, screaming (with lots of exclamation points, of course) “IT’s TIME TO ENGAGE THE BORROWER.”

You’ve seen it before. You may even be yawning as you read it.

Well…stop.

I’m a communications-type.  And dammit, it’s PAST TIME THE SETTLEMENT SERVICES INDUSTRY ENGAGED THE CONSUMER.

Really. 

You see, folks are angry.  They’re jobless.  They’re behind on their mortgages.  They don’t see much to get excited about.  They hear (frequently) about the TooBigToFail institutions, which are still managing to bonus their high-end types, long after being bailed out solely for being the pillars of our economy.  In spite of reckless choices and sloppy execution. We The People need someone to blame for waking us from our careless slumber. And the settlement services industry will soon prove to be an easy target, albeit, a proxy target. Lobbying power that can’t match most.  A value proposition that no one understands.

Does the consumer pay your bills?  Not directly.  Does the consumer ever understand (or take the time to understand) what his/her choices are at the closing table, in spite of that neat flyer you put out in the Realtor’s lobby?

Not so much. So we move on.  We tried.

We issue a postcard or two.  We mention what we do to a few friends.  We buy a banner at the county fair.  We pay dearly for our efforts. But if our efforts wind up with the borrower opting for the affiliate our Realtor/Broker/lender recommends, we give up with a mutter and a grumble.  I humbly submit that there’s something larger to shoot for.

And, I’ll posit, that’s exactly why we have DOIs, Attorneys General, sundry plaintiffs’ attorneys and myriad others aiming at the title/settlement services industry right now.  We The People are ANGRY.  They’ve lost confidence in the people who are supposed to be steering this thing, and they’re getting Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner as the “experts” explaining this mess.  If the title/settlement services industry gets mentioned at all in the post mortem, it’s at the butt end of a lawsuit recap, a fraud alert or something even worse.

When’s the last time you saw a positive article about title insurance in a mainstream or general business publication (trade publications excluded)?  I’ll wait.  Think hard.

Nuthin’?

As an industry, we have many, many holes in the dyke to fill in the short term.  I get that it’s hard to think about the big picture when I’m laying off my office manager of 25 years, and I sympathize.   But we also ignored this issue when the proverbial fish were flying into the proverbial boat.  And now, we’re at the bottom of the proverbial ocean. And yet, we continue to rearrange the deck chairs as we ignore the iceberg looming dead ahead.

Maybe it’s only the flacks like me who see any danger in our continued obstinacy when it comes to filling in the borrower and his/her proxy (mainstream media) on what, exactly, they need from the title insurance industry that matters.

We have real problems to deal with right now.  I don’t contend otherwise.  I sympathize with the hard-working title professionals scratching and clawing to keep a business open at all.  I really do.

But there’s an army of lawyers, politicians and bureaucrats out there, looking for something to demolish.  We The People demand it.  Their entitled careers as “public servants” depend upon it.  We The People are angry, if no better enlightened than we were five years ago.  Eviscerating the banks only hurts the economy and weakens the strongest of political contributions.  A thorough, and effective, browbeating of the Fed, the GSEs or Congress is something we can all continue to wait for.

But, I have a bad feeling that, pretty soon, all of these well-intentioned arrows will need to find a mark.  A mark that can’t/won’t fight back.  A mark that won’t explain its value.  A mark that won’t talk to us.  A mark that cries “no comment” each and every time someone approaches it.  A mark that nobody understands, but which is all-too-easily tied to Wall Street  and its role in the Great Recession in a world where “Wall Street” is a dirty word (ok…term).

Folks, ALTA and the state level LTAs have been calling us to battle, as an industry, for some time now.  But I don’t see the industry truly mobilizing; not the way it needs to.  Maybe you tell the neighbors what you do.  Maybe you send a few hundred to TIPAC once in awhile.

It ain’t enough.  If you believe what you do for a living is a scam; if you believe you earn a living in a profession which makes no difference to our society; if you find what you do to be irrelevant, then, by all means, keep doing what you do.

I’m just a PR guy with a few years in this industry.  All 14 of my regular readers should feel free to ignore me.

But, if you can see a little further ahead, you’ll notice the big bullseye being painted on our little industry.

It’s your call.  Can you summon something more? Is it worth it to you?