Two federal moves are pulling the title insurance industry in opposite directions this year, and neither one has resolved. One would push the system toward more state control. The other, toward federal reconsideration of a rule every closing already runs through.
The Industry’s Playbook Hasn’t Changed, Just Its Urgency
The American Land Title Association has spent 2026 pushing Congress to pass the Protecting America’s Property Rights Act, a bill that would require every mortgage sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to be insured against title risk by a state-regulated product rather than an unregulated substitute. ALTA CEO Chris Morton laid out the industry’s case directly in a June 2026 HousingWire op-ed, arguing that shifting title risk onto unregulated alternatives would push hidden legal and fraud exposure onto consumers, lenders, and ultimately taxpayers instead of the licensed, reserve-holding companies built to absorb it.
That position rests on the same argument the industry has been formalizing since 2024, when a model resolution began circulating among state legislators warning against federal agencies and government-sponsored enterprises waiving title insurance requirements or acting as self-insurers of title risk without holding the same state charters and reserves licensed title companies must maintain. ALTA still points to that resolution as one of its core advocacy resources. Behind both efforts sits the Title Action Network, the industry’s grassroots arm, which pushes the same argument directly to lawmakers and regulators whenever a new federal proposal surfaces.
State attorneys general have made a related, narrower point: in a letter opposing an earlier federal pilot that would have waived title insurance on certain refinances, 14 of them warned the move could weaken consumer protections built into state regulation and improperly expand a federal agency’s authority at the expense of the smaller title businesses that make up a large share of the industry. Their objection centered on coverage, not company size.
CFPB Opens a Different Front
While ALTA pushes for more state control, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau opened a review pointed at the opposite question: whether the federal disclosure rule every closing already runs through is itself part of the cost problem. The request for information was published July 9, acting on a March executive order aimed at expanding mortgage access through smaller banks, and covered the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure Rule, the right of rescission, and reverse mortgage disclosures. Comments closed August 10.
The request asks lenders, brokers, and other market participants whether existing timing and disclosure requirements delay closings, raise costs, or limit credit access, with two dozen questions split across four categories. It’s a fact-finding step, not a rule change. Any revision to the disclosure timeline still requires a formal rulemaking the bureau hasn’t started.
Two Fixes, Pointed in Different Directions
Read together, the two efforts aren’t arguing about the same fix. ALTA wants Washington to stay out of a market state regulators already run, and to legislate that federally backed mortgages keep using state-licensed title products rather than substitutes built outside that framework. The CFPB’s review, by contrast, treats the federal disclosure rule as something that might itself need loosening to cut compliance costs and closing delays, a goal that overlaps with complaints about a confusing, inconsistent process that varies so much from one state to the next that even buyers who did everything right still end up guessing at their own closing costs, without touching who regulates title insurance at all.
Neither track has produced a final rule. What exists so far is a request for public comment on one side and a piece of unpassed legislation on the other, both aimed at the same underlying frustration from different directions: a title and closing process buyers experience as confusing no matter which agency eventually acts on it.