Title insurers report mixed 4Q earnings as competition grows

While the four largest publicly-traded title insurers reported strong fourth-quarter financials, the outlook for 2022 is a bit more mixed for a business highly dependent on mortgage origination trends.

Title companies have more competitors compared with the private mortgage-insurance business, where the secondary-market capital requirements serve as a limiting factor to entry.

“We expect the addressable market, as measured by mortgage origination volume, to shrink in 2022 and 2023 and expect competition to heat up in a subsegment of the market, centralized refinance. This should lead to declining revenue and earnings per share in 2022,” wrote BTIG analyst Ryan Gilbert, in a report announcing his coverage of the sector. Centralized refinance refers to a central internal unit at the underwriter that handles those applications.

In particular, Gilbert cited Doma as competition for that segment, along with Radian’s title subsidiary and American Digital Title, which he said are offering rates between 20% and 30% lower than the established players.

“While a small piece of the refi market now, share could grow quickly in 2022 if order count increases while refi volume contracts 60%,” Gilbert continued. “Deeper share gains may require a competitive response from incumbents, which could potentially pressure revenue and margin.”

Here are the results for the publicly-traded title insurance underwriters, which shows how the different competitors’ result measure up so far: (First American’s results were previously covered at the time of its leadership change)