Secure Settlements Launches Mortgage Settlement Insurance

April 11, 2014

Secure Settlements, Inc. (SSI),a data intelligence and risk analytics company for the mortgage industry, has partnered with RFIB Group Ltd. and certain underwriters at Lloyd’s of London to offer a new product that will insure lenders utilizing SSI’s ClosingGuard service against losses arising at the closing table.

The MSI policy is designed to protect retail mortgage lenders that utilize SSI’s ClosingGuard closing agent vetting product against losses arising at the closing table from such perils as fraud, theft and documentation error. Coverage extends to warehouse banks and secondary market investors including GSEs, and may be available as well to consumers who are indemnified for losses at the closing table.

SSI’s vetting process, developed after several years of consultations in London, Bermuda and New York with insurance industry risk professionals, will be the basis for the MSI policy. The Lloyd’s syndicates will require a closing agent to have a rating of “low risk” by SSI for the agent to be eligible for coverage. The MSI policy will be marketed and administered by surplus lines broker Grace Church Intermediaries LLC working in partnership with insurance agents nationwide and the appointed insurance intermediary, Lloyd’s-registered broker RFIB.

The MSI policy covers theft of bank funds, borrower funds and seller funds; willful blindness; negligent funds disbursement; failure to follow closing instructions; collateral mistakes; conspiracy; and failure to record.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says that lenders filed more than 98,000 suspicious activity reports in 2013 and reported 1,220 indictments of mortgage fraud in 2012. Meanwhile, escrow and closing fraud grew more than 20 percent in the past three years, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Secure Settlements, Inc. is offers a standardized risk management process and information database of fully risk-assessed mortgage closing professionals that protects both consumers and lenders, reducing fraud and ensuring that federal regulatory requirements are met.

The SSI process delivers closing fraud risk analysis and helps lenders meet the risk management expectations for third-party risk assessment of vendor relationships, as outlined by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the National Credit Union Administration.

International insurance and reinsurance broker RFIB does approximately 75 percent of its business in reinsurance or wholesale business and the remainder retail/direct. Its worldwide client base includes international companies, insurance and reinsurance groups and Lloyd’s syndicates. RFIB also acts as a wholesale broker and consultant to direct and reinsurance brokers worldwide.

Topics Fraud Agencies Excess Surplus Reinsurance Lloyd's Risk Management

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