May 2nd, 2025 |
Three Reasons Why I Don’t Recommend Title Lock Insurance
By Al Spiegel
Reading Time: 3 minutes
One of the most common questions that comes up during estate planning consultations at my office is based on commercials on late-night television and ads that sometimes pop up on social media. What are those commercials selling? Title lock insurance.
What’s their pitch? The commercials suggest that identity thieves may steal the ownership of people’s homes by fraudulently filing deeds, mortgages, or other legal documents with forged signatures of the owners — and the owners would never know it. Then, as a result of those forged and fraudulent documents, the owners would have to move out of their own home or pay large sums of money to “repay” a debt they never incurred. To be clear, I do not recommend title lock insurance of any kind, for three primary reasons:
1. Title Theft is Extremely Rare
As an estate planning attorney who has been practicing law for over 20 years, I have seen a lot of things — and have accumulated client stories that are inspiring, infuriating, and everything in between. I have had the privilege of serving hundreds of families and thousands of individuals in a variety of ways. And I have never once seen an example of title theft as described in the title lock commercials.
Could an identity thief forge a deed and file it with the county to try and take someone’s house? Sure. Why don’t they? First, they would be committing a felony in doing so and would almost certainly end up in jail, because they are literally leaving a paper trail leading directly to themselves. Second — and probably more impactfully — the scam would not work. As soon as the fraudulent documents were discovered, a judge would reverse whatever document was forged and filed, and the owner would be restored to life exactly as it was prior to the forgery.
Scammers are undoubtedly always up for a new scam, but this particular one is unlikely to catch on for the reasons stated above. It would seem they are much more likely to invest their time and energy into selling useless insurance to vulnerable people.
2. Title Lock Insurance Doesn’t Lock Anything
The biggest misnomer about title lock insurance is that it doesn’t lock anything. As advertised on the websites of title lock insurers, the service they provide is to monitor people’s deeds (a free service through county government) and let them know if their title has been stolen. That’s not a lock! A door lock prevents thieves from getting into your home, it doesn’t send you a letter to let you know you were robbed a few days ago!
3. Title Lock Insurance Doesn’t Provide a Clear Service in the Event of Fraud
Title lock insurance is not only not a lock; it is also not insurance. One title lock insurance website claims that the company will spend up to one million dollars with its U.S. team in the event that a title is stolen. No further information is provided. It does not specify how much it will spend in the event of a theft — it just sets a maximum. It does not specify where those funds will be directed. Do they hire a local attorney? Do they send you a check for your lost time and added stress? Do they hire themselves to send a series of letters to your local police department? Do they charge you to throw a pizza party at their office to celebrate the fact that a title theft has actually occurred? It is not clear. All we know is that they will provide payments ranging from $0 to $1,000,000. That’s not enough information.
For all of these reasons, title “lock” “insurance” should be avoided. Its only apparent value is to upset people by suggesting a very unlikely scenario — and it provides no clear protection or remedy in the event that unlikely scenario occurs.
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