The 15th edition of the National Settlement Services Summit (NS3) got off to a terrific start Tuesday as Acting Deputy Secretary, and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Commissioner and Assistant Secretary for Housing of the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) Brian Montgomery highlighted many topics and issues with important updates for everyone within the real estate transaction business.
Montgomery discussed the plans in motion pertaining to specific updates for housing finance reform. He also was asked about how he envisions what affects the housing market will have in the next couple of years, and maybe what are some of the ways he’s looking to reform areas and improve the MMI Fund.
Montgomery touched on the notion that affordability remains a challenge, while the FHA/Ginnie Mae partnership is critical regarding the existing of loans with closing transactions becoming more efficient. The FHA goal, he said, is to provide lenders with a greater degree of certainty for homebuyers, especially the first-time homebuyer, while making the process easier to do business with the FHA.
The day’s next session featured an independent underwriter panel comprising of CEO Mary O’Donnell (Westcor Land Title Insurance CO.), President and CEO Chris Phillips (First National Title Insurance Co.) and President David Townsend (Agents Title Insurance Co.) discussing with the audience who are independent underwriters, and what are their goals.
Phillips emphasized that the underwriter’s “lifeblood” is related to how their independent agents are doing. The benefit of being an independent underwriter is the allowance to understand better the customer’s needs. Townsend said a key component in what underwriters do deals with creativity, and finding out when things happen, how does the agent react to it? “You learn what makes a great agent from the ground up,” Townsend said.
O’Donnell introduced the thought of innovation changing businesses. For example, she said, Uber proved innovative for the passenger, but it was disruptive for the taxi cab driver. She also brought up wire fraud as something being very scary to the agent, and underwriters try to educate agents to the best of their ability when it comes to combatting this issue. “Hackers get smarter every time we come up with a way to block them,” Phillips said.
Cyber insurance was brought up with the audience where the panel stressed that agents should make sure they know exactly what kind of cyber coverage they have.
“Compliance Management Systems for Tomorrow” was up next with Managing Partner Sean Burke (Mattingly, Burke, Cohen & Biederman, LLP) and Managing Partner Marx Sterbcow (Sterbcow Law Group).
The panel suggested that every title company must have a robust compliance management system (CMS), and that a business is only as good as its CMS. And a good CMS establishes oversight for compliance responses, reviews the execution plan for rolling out, monitoring and communicating programs, ensures the feedback gets efficiently tracked and acted upon, and reviews the operation for ensuring responsibilities are carried out and the legal requirements are met.
The sessions concluded with a regulatory panel featuring Chuck Myers (Supervisor, RESA Investigations Section, Virginia Bureau of Insurance), Susan Apel (Senior Deputy Attorney General, Pennsylvania’s Office of Attorney General, Bureau of Consumer Protection) and Colin Hector (Attorney, Federal Trade Commission Western Region) engaging in matters also pertaining to cybersecurity. The session was moderated by attorney Richard Horn, partner at Garris Horn, PLLC.
The panel of state regulators detailed their priorities and views on the appropriate steps to take when it comes to enforcing cybersecurity issues and other matters concerning potential consumer harm.
The day closed with the Make a Child Smile community service event, followed by the Opening Night Reception and the Networking Nightcap.