The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) is making the agent application and license renewal processes for title insurance companies easier and cheaper.
Under previous procedures, the IDFPR would need 30 minutes to review the approximately 2,000 applications it receives every year. The new real-time application trims that time to just six or seven minutes. The savings on staff time are expected to amount to $275,000, while underwriters are estimated to save nearly half-a-million dollars over five years.
“As we continue efforts to increase regulatory productivity, while reducing red tape for our licensees, proper utilization of existing technologies has been an integral part of the process,” IDFPR Secretary Bryan Schneider said. “By revising the title agent application and renewal processes, we are able to provide the same regulatory oversight, while reducing the work load for both underwriters and the Department. To give an example, these revisions eliminate 50,000 pages of irrelevant documents that required submission by underwriters and review by the Department. These upgrades afford a significant savings of time and a better allocation of resources for both the underwriter and IDFPR.”
There are 18 title insurance companies in Illinois, serving approximately 18,000 title insurance agents across the state.