Dave Wirsching's Profile

Title Insurance and Services segment adjusted pretax margin of 8.2 percent, or 6.6 percent including net realized investment losses

The company continued to realize operational efficiencies by leveraging its centralized onshore and offshore capabilities.

The loss provision for claims during the second quarter of 2009 was 6.5 percent of operating revenues, compared with 6.3 percent in the second quarter of 2008. The current quarter rate reflects the expected claims experience for policy year 2009, with no reserve estimate adjustments required for prior policy years.

For the second quarter of 2009, we reported a pretax loss, before noncontrolling interests, of $16.1 million compared with a pretax loss of $44.2 million in 2008.

"In the first half of the year, we continued the aggressive restructuring of our agency network begun in 2008," said Malcolm S. Morris, chairman and co-chief executive officer. "We canceled more than 700 higher-risk and underperforming agencies in the first half of 2009 and have canceled more than 3,200 agencies since the beginning of 2007. We continue to embrace the agency market, but we are increasing our diligence, inspection and expectations for these operations. In the first half of 2009, we signed up more than 330 new agencies-all of which were subjected to an extensive pre-signing qualification process. The annual revenues from the newly-signed agencies are expected to significantly exceed the revenues lost from the underperforming agencies canceled this year, and we anticipate that these new agencies will generate far fewer title losses based on our review of their historical loss data,"

Besides the miscalculation of rates, officials said Chicago Title was charging fees for closing services that had not been filed with the Division of Insurance.