Title insurance companies enduring tough year, but United Title Co. smells like roses.

Title insurance companies enduring tough year, but United Title Co. smells like roses

Los Angeles County's largest title insurance companies suffered a dismal year in 1990 due primarily to the slumping real estate market, but most of the companies maintained their relative shares of the smaller market, according to The List (see facing page) published in this week's edition of the Business Journal.

The performance of title companies, which insure title transfers and refinancings of property, generally mimics the overall performance of the real estate industry as a whole. As real estate transactions slow, title work grinds to a halt.

The county's largest title companies insured about $46.56 billion worth of local property during the first 11 months of 1990, according to TRW Real Estate Information Services. That represents a 7.3 percent decline from the same period of 1989.

Total grant deeds issued, resulting from residential resale transactions, plummeted 26.0 percent.

Specifically, 161,705 grant deeds were issued during the first 11 months of 1990, compared with 119,731 for the same period of the prior year.

Ticor Title Insurance Co. of California, one of L.A.'s oldest companies, suffered the biggest plunge in property value insured. It insured $3.4 billion worth of local property during the first 11 months of 1990, a 21.5 percent drop from the year before.

Ticor's parent company, Westwood Equities Corp., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November, and is now in the process of being bought by Chicago Title Co.

A Ticor spokeswoman attributed the company's bad 1990 performance exclusively to the real estate slowdown, and insisted it had nothing to do with the parent company's bankruptcy filing and pending acquisition.

Other title companies suffering steep drops in L.A. County business were Universal City-based Continental Land Title Co., Burbank-based World Title Co. and Burbank-based Title Land Co. Inc.

Total value of property insured by Continental fell 19.9 percent and the number of grant deeds it insured dove 28.9 percent.

World Title's value of property insured dropped 15.8 percent and its grant deeds were off 35.4 percent. Title Land's value of insured property declined 14.8 percent and its grant deeds dropped 27.7 percent.

The worst plunge in local grant deeds insured was suffered by Fidelity National Title, which insured 5,632 deeds during the first 11 months of 1990. That represented more than a 40 percent drop from the year before.

"Areas where we're strongest (in residential resale) are the same areas that were hit hardest by the current slowdown," explained William Foley, Fidelity's chief executive and president. "Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica and certain parts of the San Fernando Valley are just in terrible shape. But areas where we don't have a strong presence, like the South Bay and San Gabriel Valley, haven't been hit as hard."

The biggest winner of 1990, by far, was Mid-Wilshire-based United Title Co., which saw its value of property insured shoot up by more than 50 percent during the first 11 months of the year.

Meanwhile, the number of grant deeds insured by United rose by 0.4 percent at a time when its competitors suffered declines of between 20 percent and 40 percent.

Henri Van Hirtum, United's president and chief executive, attributed the company's improved performance to a new office it opened in Arcadia in late 1989.

United succeeded in hiring away nearly the entire team of World Title's high-producing office in Arcadia. And that Arcadia ship-jumping contributed significantly to United's sterling 1990 performance.

PHOTO : Henri Van Hirtum: Attributes United Title's performance to its new Arcadia office