Ticor: for nearly 100 years Ticor's title has been insured.

Ticor For nearly 100 years Ticor's title has been insured

Lots of companies like to talk about their age and history. But MidWilshire-based Ticor feels it's justified in mentioning its roots - even in real estate-conscious Los Angeles.

Ticor, the holding and management company for Ticor Title Insurance Co. of California and a number of other subsidiaries, was founded when Los Angeles was just a fledgling, rough-and-tumble West Coast city.

Ticor was established in 1893 when the Abstract and Title Insurance Co. and the Los Angeles Abstract Co. joined forces. Back then, Southern California land went for a $10 an acre, and a one way ticket from St. Louis to Los Angeles cost $1.

After World War II, Ticor began to expand into Northern California, the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest and the East Coast. By the mid-1960s, Ticor and its subsidiaries were doing business in 49 states, the District of Columbia and a number of U.S.-governed territories.

Now almost 100 years old, Ticor has built its network of title insurance companies into one of the oldest and largest in the nation. Two years ago Ticor Title Insurance Cos. was the top rated title company in Los Angeles County, recording more than 32,000 grant deeds. Companywide, Ticor Title Insurance Cos. reported revenues of $578 million and recorded 568,000 grant deeds in 1987, according a Los Angeles Business Journal survey.

In 1988, Ticor Title Insurance Cos. recorded more than 18,867 grant deeds in Los Angeles and insured $5.8 billion in mortgages. Revenues for Ticor Title Insurance Cos.' L.A. County were $40.5 million.

The company was rated as the third-biggest title insurance company in L.A. County - ranked by grant deeds issued by L.A. County offices - with more revenues than the top-rated title company, First American Title Co. of Los Angeles.

But even with the company's success, some executives at Ticor feel the public doesn't generally know what title companies are all about.

"There is not a correct understanding of what we do," said Eric Everbach, has doubled since 1979, with the scams ranging from hundreds to millions of dollars in magnitude. Ticor Title's investigatory arm has already unearthed a full gamut of possibly damaging scams, ranging from forgeries to lending institution fraud.

Title insurers, in essence, are insurance companies for land. They set forth the conditions under which an underwriter will agree to insure a person or business entity against loss, if any, relating to a property's title. Title insurance is designed to protect both the buyer and the lender against unanticipated defects in the title to property.

Ticor Title - rated the 34th largest private business in the state by California Business magazine - is involved in other areas of real estate besides insuring property owners and lenders. Indeed, Ticor Title is composed of three primary companies: Ticor Title Insurance Co. of California Co., Ticor Title Insurance Co. and Ticor Title Guarantee Co.

Ticor Title also functions as a neutral third party in the escrow process. And the holding company operates a realty tax service through its subsidiary, Ticor Realty Tax Services Inc., which provides information about tax payments on property that serve as security for mortgage loans.

"We serve two functions in terms of realty tax services," explained Everbach. "We provide a service to lenders who don't have impound accounts but want to see if the property taxes have been paid. We also tell lenders with impound accounts when and in what amount to pay taxes to avoid a loss of priority for their mortgage due to nonpayment of real property taxes. This is crucial because property taxes take precedence over mortgage liens."

While many a fortune has been won and lost in L.A.'s dynamic real estate market in the 1980s, Everbach said that Ticor Title has had a different experience.

"We have had a relatively stable market in the last five years, frankly because the real estate market has not experienced that steady a growth. We have had very short cycles of boom and bust. Look at what happened in the oil patch - Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana - where land values have shrunk and the number of transactions have dropped."

Because Ticor Title serves virtually every county in the United States, geographic real estate patterns dictate to a great extent what the company does. Ticor Title operates through 300 company-owned offices nationwide, as well as through the offices of over 2,500 agents and approved attorneys. In L.A. County the company has 1,041 employees and seven offices. Nationally the company employs approximately 6,000.

"Real estate cycles are our life blood. They affect us tremendously," Everbach said. "In the last years we have have seen these cycles more pronounced geographically and have noticed that the frequency and intensity of the cycles have been greater because of fluctuations in interest rates, oil prices and tax codes."

Keeping track of real estate markets, cycles, taxes and trends in 50 states is a tough assignment. To maintain updated information, Ticor Title created two computerized field systems - TI-STAR and TI-STAR 38 - to serve as data bases for escrow closings, preparation of title of reports and policies and documents

Said Everbach: "With all the information we handle, we need a unique system like this because it was designed for title insurance."

Probably the two most significant events for Ticor were: its acquisition by New TC Holding Corp. in 1984 from Southern Pacific; and the creation of a full service in-house corporate security department in the early 1980's - one of the first in the industry.

Most title claims arise out of inadvertence or incorrect legal interpretations. However, fraud is also covered by title insurance and the number of fraud cases has literally doubled since 1979, with the scams ranging from hundreds to millions of dollars in magnitude. Ticor Title's investigatory arm has already unearthed a full gamut of possibly damaging scams, ranging from forgeries to lending institution fraud.

"The most common fraud is failure to identify liens and encumbrances that appear as exceptions, for example a missing mortgage," Everbach said.

Ticor Title's Security Department - initiated by Ticor resident Winston V. Morrow - also conducts background investigations of Ticor Title for job applicants and agents who are applying for sensitive positions. Added the Ticor general counsel: "Our agents have the power of our pen and we have to be careful to whom we give authority."

In addition, Ticor Title has established a special investigations division that works on asset location and embezzlement issues.

While the California insurance industry has found itself embattled with the Proposition 103 controversy and the health insurance crisis, Everbach thinks his line of work has remained unscathed. "Generally, title insurance is not tarred with the same brush that seems to affect the reputation of property and casualty insurers," Everbach said.

He added that it is vital for people to understand and trust the title companies for one simple reason. "This company deals with everybody's most valuable asset: their land."

PHOTO : Winston Morrow: Holding title for the nation

PHOTO : Title insurance: Ticor secures homeowners