Thanks for your response, Robert.

I can see that you have a passion for your profession.  I suppose that the fact that you started up this website is further evidence of that.  I may have been unclear in my original post about its intent.  I agree with you about the diminishing standards.  I don't seek to further that slide. 

If you were to poll all of the title agents serving multiple states to find out the standards they use in any given situation:  Purchase, first mortgage refinance, second mortgage, you would need to employ the highest standard given for each transaction type.  No agent will accept less than that which is specified by the underwriter.  Thus, you could actually restore the marketable title standard in the process of working with the vendor manager/agents.

I believe the move from marketable title to "insurable" title is the result of the major underwriters' increase in risk tolerance due to desire for expediency during the "refi boom".  Lenders did not want title held up either and came to tolerate "insurable title".  I believe that the major lenders understand the difference between the two and accept the risk in exchange for lower costs and higher volume.

In my little corner of the world, lenders gave up on marketable title with respect to their second mortgage lending decades ago.  I would speculate that they saw the rarity of the inferior lien holder actually taking possession of a foreclosed property.  Why would the second mortgage holder take on the expense of the foreclosure process when they may not recover their principle and costs after the superior lien holder is paid?  I guess that the second mortgage lenders decided that the money saved by buying a tract search instead of title insurance would more than offset the risk.  This type of bottom-line thinking has not changed.

I know that there are states which have not experienced the trend away from title insurance in the second mortgage market the way that Illinois has.  It seems to me, though, that most of the larger lenders are gravitating toward lowering their per-unit costs to remain competitive.  The title underwriters are responding by lowering their standards.

Maybe local standards vary too widely to ever come up with a uniform product. I could be completely off-base here.  And there does not appear to be much interest in discussing the issue (with the exception of the man from Texas with the cool mobile office).  It does appear to me, however, that those local standards will soon enough lose their importance as more and more business is transacted from distant states.