James,

Thank you for your knowledgeable and thoughtful input.

First, let me present my understanding of the title insurance business as a student and see if I get it about right.  First, title insurance has two types of policies, Owner's and Lender's, for the former it's for the protection of the title for the buyer of the property, and for the latter, the lending party, usually bank or mortgage company.  Title insurance companies / short for title companies do not want to get into too much risk of insuring a property if it has tons of defects or the cost of fixing them is too high... thus, the need of title research (by title researchers / abstractors), and then title examination, then take appropriate action(s) if necessary.  Once it's all set, they would proceed to create a title commitment, it happens prior to closing, after closing policy would be issued.

What I have done in this space. a) I have created a title report tool to allow title researchers / abstractors to easily create title reports (according to clients' feedback, it's very flexible and easy to use -- http://titlereporttool.com/ );  b) I have been tasked to design and develop a title commitment tool for two states (if interested in knowing which states please email me), very flexible, extensive testing has been completed, orders are expected to be entered any time soon.  Yes, around the time I completed developing the title commitment tool, it prompted me to think of its relationship to policies, and yes, I also thought converting commitment into policy is not only easy but also practical.  In the meantime, my client has not talked about escrow.  So, you're right there's a lot I need to learn about this industry, hopefully I have the propensity of connecting dots and learn them reasonably fast.

And if you don't mind my asking, are you a title agent or are you one of the executives from one of these software companies?

Much appreciated.

Don