July 21, 2009
Letter from CLTA President, Roger Jewkes
I am extremely honored to receive this year's appointment to serve in the President’s role for this fine association and hopefully contribute to its profound heritage over this coming 103rd fiscal year.
First, I extend thanks to Larry Buster, CLTA’s immediate past president for his exceptional leadership during this past year. In addition, his apparent natural ability to balance levity and professionalism was welcomed during a year of regulatory and economic ups and downs.
As an industry, these past three years have in my opinion been unprecedented periods of economic and regulatory adversity. However, as individual member companies and as an association we have worked in earnest with our regulators in crafting regulations of a nature we could actually implement and comply with, while also maintaining our ability to operate our respective companies in a fiscally responsible manner.
While I am certain there are many additional obstacles ahead of us as an industry, below I have summarized my observations of our industry’s recent adversities, and in some discerning ways, accomplishments:
- Very recently we received the final draft of the Amended Title Insurance Statistical Reporting Regulation back from the Department. Though the reporting will be more than what is currently required, in comparison to what was originally authored by previous administrations nearly five years ago, the data we will be required to submit is significantly less burdensome than the rate-setting regulation it is now replacing. Again, in my opinion these modifications would not have been achieved without the perseverance and the efforts of this association and its member companies working with department representatives.
- As of January 1, 2009, we are now governed by the Title Solicitor Licensing Bill - SB133. It is my personal belief that more authority of this nature in the hands of the regulators was in fact necessary to admonish decades of misconduct by some industry participants; which behavior I surmise has significantly slighted the perception of value we provide to the consumer. While the final version of SB 133 is considerably more restrictive than desired by industry consensus, without our active involvement the Bill would have also imposed reporting requirements of a nature that would have significantly increased costs to the industry, and ultimately to the consumer in implementation and ongoing reporting expenses.
- Earlier this year, the California Department of Insurance expressed an interest in the breadth of the property profile and farm information provided by the title insurance industry to potential referral sources. Their concern was that what has been distributed may exceed the statutory exception. A CLTA delegation was appointed, and is working persistently with Department representatives to permit our industry to continue providing to the consumer the information necessary to make informed title decisions regarding their real property.
The above cited examples are only a few of my personal observations; however, I am confident there were several others and there will be many more to come in the future.
What has been accomplished as an association could not have been done without the dedication of a plethora of resources from you, the member companies and of course the dedicated efforts of the CLTA staff led by Craig Page. I know they are a lean staff of just four, but their number is no reflection upon their caliber. I am utterly amazed at the level of support provided by Craig, along with Cynthia Groom, Heather Starkey and Anthony Helton. I am sure you would agree that we, as members of this association, have never waned for support by this fine group of staff members. I look forward to working with all of them more closely over the coming year.
While I know we all realize that 2009 may quite possibly be another challenging year as we remain in a recession and in uncharted territories, with unemployment and foreclosure rates hitting quarter century highs, I remain cautiously optimistic. My anticipation and desire for this 2009-2010 fiscal year is that we, as an association and as business people, can finally work towards implementation of the now Amended Regulations and get that process behind us. I also remain hopeful, in a self-serving way, that outside of the normal legislative adversity we generally expect and have historically have always been faced with, we have the potential as an industry to have a propitious period and engage in healthy competition.
I look forward to this opportunity to work within a dedicated group of committee members, board of governors and executive committee members. Their benevolence and time volunteered to focus on solutions for the betterment of the industry as a whole is greatly appreciated.
