Title Data Introduces Expanded Counties Program

October 26, 2010

Title Data, Inc (TDI) announced the introduction of its Expanded Counties Program, a plan designed to make it easier for Houston-based title companies to compete in the Dallas/Ft. Worth title insurance market, and for Dallas/Ft. Worth-based title companies to compete in the Houston market, all with minimal or no additional title plant expense.

Recently TDI acquired traditional, “thick” title plants for Collin, Denton and Tarrant counties, three of the four counties which principally comprise the Dallas/Ft. Worth metropolitan area. These computerized title plants begin in 1974, are fully integrated with digital images of recorded documents, and are copies of the title plants maintained by the Title Records Division of ACS, a Xerox company. Title Records has been the predominant title plant vendor for the Dallas/Ft. Worth market for many years.

To round out its Dallas/Ft. Worth title plant footprint, TDI is building a traditional, thick title plant for Dallas County, the fourth major DFW county, which will go back to at least 1979. TDI’s Dallas County title plant will also be fully integrated with real property images, and is projected to come online by the end of 2011’s first quarter.

Recognizing that the Houston and Dallas/Ft. Worth title plant markets have historically been different, TDI sought a means to balance its long-standing Houston business model, which closely defines who can benefit from its proprietary land records and information, with the existing Dallas/Ft. Worth title plant market, which evolved over the last 45 years with less stringent rules. At the same time, TDI wanted to pass through to its customers, in the form of lower prices, the efficiencies it has achieved in recent years with its development of new title plant and title production technologies, including TIMS Novo, a sophisticated plant-indexing system.

The vehicle to achieve both goals is TDI’s Expanded Counties Program, which delivers a means for Dallas/Ft. Worth-area title companies to benefit from TDI’s Houston-area land records and reduce their Dallas/Ft. Worth plant costs. Conversely, it provides the opportunity for Houston based-title companies to enter the Dallas/Ft. Worth title insurance market with minimal or no additional title plant expense.

Founded in 1967, TDI is owned by virtually every national title insurance underwriter. TDI is one of the largest title plant maintainers in the United States, choosing to offer only traditional “thick” title plant products to meet its customers’ title search and examination needs. TDI is also a major developer of technology for the title industry, licensing its TIMS suite of title plant and title production systems to title plant maintainers throughout the country.


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