I'm afraid this is going to become far more common going forward.  It's not so much a decision made by your customer, but a demand from their customer, and their customer on up the line.  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fairly recently began to enforce its rules to enforce the Dodd-Frank Act, which stresses consumer privacy provisions in the Graham Leach Bliley Act.  The CFPB will hold the lender responsible for the actions of its vendors, and their vendors on down the line, as far as how they handle non-public personal information.

The American Land Title Association put together a package of 'best practices' and sold it to the lenders, and so is increasingly being adopted by title insurers and title agents.  Part of those best practices is making sure all employees and vendors who have access to the consumer's information get background checked at lease every second or third year. 

 All of our employees have undergone a background check.  If you plan to continue working as an independent for a number of customers, I would not be too quick to write off the background checks.