Buying a home or property is an investment, one that you want to protect to the best of your ability. This is where insurance (the protection from financial loss, given in exchange for a fee and put into effect when certain criteria are met such as loss, damage, or injury) steps in. There are a few different types of insurance, and one important one you might not be aware of at the start of your home-owning journey.

Title insurance can easily seem like another unnecessary add-on to the already complicated and costly process of buying a house, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is the step taken to protect you against a variety of unforeseen and expensive risks you may not be privy to. It offers cost-effective, long-term, powerful protection, but there’s a great deal to know about it.

In quick summary, title insurance protects you against loss from defects in the legal ownership of your property—otherwise known as Title. These defects encompass situations such as issues with a property survey, title fraud, registration of your land title and problems you didn’t know you took on from a previous owner. Due to these defects being unpredictable, title insurance is vital to protect oneself against uncertainty. 

Let’s say, for example, that you were to buy a home with a lovely gazebo on the land. A building inspector came out before the final purchase and surveyed all the structures on the land, including the gazebo, but found nothing of issue. After you move in, you find that the gazebo’s placement on your land breaks city guidelines and will need to be fixed, taken down or moved at your own cost. In this case, you may be entitled to compensation based on your title insurance. 

Unlike home insurance, title insurance aims to protect you on issues that are preexisting and outside of your knowledge. If that gazebo happened to take damage in a storm, instead of breaking city guidelines, home insurance would come into effect. However, the gazebo was breaking city guidelines and didn’t have the correct permits from the city when built, much before you took ownership of the property. One thing the two insurances do have in common is their many complexities. When going about it alone, this can be a confusing step in the home-owning journey. 

With Endhome, you aren’t on this journey alone. Your notary or lawyer is a fantastic resource to learn about this vital protection for you as a homeowner—we’ve compiled some calculators online to help you estimate the premium for your particular transaction.  

Calculate FCT premium here.
Calculate Stewart Title premium here.