Ricky,

Sorry that you are experiencing hard times. It is just representative of what most abstractors are going through at this time. The industry has taken a turn for the worse in the past ten years, and there does not seem to be any improvement on the horizon. The Fatco example is only the beginning. The other major title insurers will be following them to India. The remaining VM's which do not have the ability outsource to the third world have little to offer the abstractors in return for the heightened  level of service they want. Take a look at Wendi See's post above entitled "Calling all desparate abstractors." It will give you some idea of what the VM's at a major title company have offered her. This is not an isolated incident. The VM's nickle and dime approach to ordering an abstract has become almost pandemic.

If you have hedged your bet by starting a new business in an unrelated field, you can count yourself among the fortunate. You are moving in the right direction.We have reduced the abstracting function our firm does to almost nothing, and have refocused on closings and litigation. I have to say that if there was any resulting  reduction in revenue, it was not noticeable. If anything, there has been an improvement on the balance sheet for 2006 so far.

Many in the abstracting community are in a state of denial waiting for the environment to improve. It is not going to improve unless there is some serious legislation to end the outsourcing (highly unlikely) and the abstractors abandon their "customer is always right" attitude. It is time to get out.