Kimberly Cunningham

A title search reviews public records to confirm legal ownership and uncover liens, claims, judgments, loans, or unpaid property taxes before a sale or loan.
Buyers, lenders, or other requesting parties typically hire a title company or attorney, because courthouse records and legal documents can be difficult to access.
After the search, buyers receive a preliminary title report, raise any issues with the seller, and decide whether to proceed before closing.
A clean title confirms clear ownership, while a dirty title can involve unknown liens, survey errors, building code violations, or record-keeping mistakes.
Title insurance adds protection if missed documents, forgery, fraud, unrecorded easements, lawsuits, or other past title defects create financial loss after purchase.

What Is a Title Search?

A ratings agency projected full-year 2026 segment capital at record levels, with ~$575B in traditional reinsurance capital plus ~$130B from third-party investors.
Strong recent performance produced robust organic capital generation, leaving ample capacity to return capital to shareholders or deploy it into new business.
The stable outlook reflected supportive pricing for solid results, strong nominal and risk-adjusted capital, sustained property-catastrophe underwriting, and elevated interest rates boosting investment income.
Headwinds included faster property reinsurance pricing softening, modestly easier terms, aggregate covers reappearing, and weather, geopolitical, inflation, monetary-policy, and market-volatility risks globally.
Looking ahead, M&A was expected to stay selective, while strong third-party capital could sustain investor interest and add competitive pressure to property-catastrophe pricing.