Commercial industry
Title Search and Abstract Office Insurance
A title-search or abstract office is paid to be right about a chain of title. The claim is a missed lien, a bad legal description, or a commitment that a closer treated as a guarantee you never issued. That is professional liability, not a office slip-and-fall. Cyber sits next to it because closing files are a map of bank accounts, Social Security numbers, and wiring instructions.
We place independent searchers, abstracters, and small title-support shops that are not a full underwritten title-insurance company. If you issue title-insurance policies as an agent of an underwriter, say so — agency E&O and the underwriter’s requirements change the file. If you only search and deliver a report, this page is the chassis.
Professional liability for search work is claims-made and often written on a title-agent or abstracters form, not a generic miscellaneous E&O. We match the form to the work. A missed easement that shows up at refinance three years later is why the retro date and the definition of “professional services” have to be read, not assumed. We ask for sample reports and the engagement language you use with lenders and closing agents.
Cyber and social-engineering coverage are not a brochure mention on a closing-adjacent office. The loss we underwrite for is a changed wiring instruction, a compromised email thread, and a file that has to be notified under state statute. Multi-factor authentication and a written callback procedure for wiring changes are underwriting facts, not IT advice we pretend is optional.
The office package covers the premises, the plant or digital plant you actually own, and business income if a fire or a long outage stops searches. Hired and non-owned auto covers courthouse runs in personal cars. Washington staff stay with L&I; we place stop-gap and any competitive-state workers compensation. We do not write personal lines on a home office as a substitute for the commercial package — if you work from a dwelling, we schedule a home-based commercial exposure and we say what the form excludes.
Real-estate agents and accountants are the related pages because those are the people who send you work and who will ask to be additional insured or to see your E&O certificate. We issue those certificates to the wording the engagement actually requires, not to a template someone forwarded from 2019.
Risks we actually schedule
- A missed lien, easement, or legal-description error that surfaces at a later closing.
- A closing-file breach or a spoofed-wire on funds you never held but helped direct.
- A client who treated a search report as a title-insurance policy.
- Continuity and retro-date problems when a one-person shop joins a larger plant.
Frequently asked questions
Are we a title-insurance agency or a search office?
If you issue policies as an agent of an underwriter, you are an agency and the E&O form should say so. If you only search and report, say that. Mixing the two on a miscellaneous form is how claims get denied.
Does cyber matter if we never hold escrow?
Yes. You still see wiring instructions, borrower data, and closing files. The statute does not care that the money sat at the lender.
A closing party wants us additional insured on E&O. Can you do that?
Sometimes, by endorsement, when the form allows it. We read the request against the actual policy. A certificate that promises wording the form will not issue is worse than no certificate.
Related coverage, industries, and locations
Professional Liability
Errors-and-omissions coverage when advice, design, or a professional service is alleged to have caused a financial loss.
Coverage detailsCyber
Ransomware, data-breach response, forensic IT, notification, and business income after a network event.
Coverage detailsBusiness Owner's Policy
A packaged policy that pairs general liability with commercial property and business income for eligible classes.
Coverage detailsReal Estate Agent
E&O for the license, plus a office package and cyber for the brokerage that holds the files.
Industry pageAccountant
CPA and bookkeeping firms: professional liability first, then cyber, a office package, and the tax-season spike.
Industry pageProfessional Consulting
Miscellaneous professional liability, cyber, and a office package for firms whose product is advice.
Industry pageOregon
Licensed commercial insurance broker serving Oregon.
State page