Have never run into that.  We are able to use whomever we select for title searches.  I don't write for Stewart but a friend of mine does and he recently told me that with all of the new mandates coming out of Stewart, he is just about ready to stop doing business with them. 

They (Stewart) seem to want to control every aspect of their agents business from dictating where the title report comes from to being able to see, on a daily basis, the ins and outs of their agents escrow accounts and their operating accounts.

Oversight is good, don't get me wrong, but micromanaging is just not the answer.