The growth of Stewart toward an end-to-end real estate experience

Stewart is one of the largest global title insurers and underwriters in the industry. It has been in existence for more than 128 years and is based on values ​​such as accountability, collaboration, trust and a fundamental commitment to provide better experiences.

But the company is not satisfied with looking back on its long history. Instead, executives look ahead and focus on how the company can grow.

“Our vision is to be the leading title services company,” said Beth Fowler, EVP of Lender Services at Stewart. “To be the best company in the industry for lenders and corporate clients, our performance must go beyond the title. And it does.”

Investing in people and technology

Stewart has been in the news several times over the past two years as the company has expanded its talent and made numerous acquisitions to support its growth. Acquisitions include title and settlement offices to expand its market share and gain scale in key markets, and technology providers to enhance customer experiences and expand its data and analytics capabilities.

In the last three quarters alone, the company hired more than 3,500 people through acquisitions and direct hires.

Over the past 18 months, the company has invested $1 billion in more than twenty companies spanning the breadth of its business. Industry leaders it has added to its portfolio include ASK Services, Cloudvirga, Pro Teck Valuation Intelligence, Signature Closers, United States Appraisals, Informative Research, PropStream and NotaryCam.

“We have been very conscious in looking for potential acquisition targets and products and services that would benefit our customers,” said Fowler. “Our acquisition strategy demonstrates Stewart’s commitment to providing a better experience, whatever it takes. This dollar investment coupled with the intentional nature of what we have brought to the Stewart Group – at the end of the day we are excited to see what this brings to our clients.”

Improvement of services and skills

Stewart’s investments reflect the important role that lender services play in its overall plan to become the leading title services company. Stewart has shown a real commitment to providing centralized title services to its lenders and other corporate clients. Over the past two years, the Credit department has focused on two things: growing in size and scale, and adding new capabilities to serve clients who require cross-border and domestic solutions.

According to Fowler, “As a world-class partner, we allocate our capital very carefully to look for solutions, capabilities, products and services that truly maximize and enhance the customer experience, whether for lenders, service providers, investors, power buyers or others. A big part of that, we think, is making sure we have a robust suite of digital data and analytics services.”

Providing an end-to-end experience

Stewart’s lender services cover the entire digital mortgage and real estate business. That’s on purpose, Fowler said.

“We’re starting to leverage our core title capabilities and expand to other products and services in the transaction lifecycle,” she said. “We’ve added functionality that starts at the front end with the consumer and then goes through to closing and funding and beyond.”

The result is an impressive chain. PropStream provides lead generation data; Informative Research provides customer acquisition, pre-qualification, inventory preservation, and credit and verification solutions; Cloudvirga POS system supports lenders, lenders, consumers and brokers and automates back office tasks; United States Appraisals and Pro Teck expand Stewart’s depth of appraisal and valuation from underwriting to capital markets to servicing; Signature Closers and NotaryCam offer advanced signing options; and partnering with CertifID protects funding.

Commenting on Cloudvirga, one of Stewart’s more recent acquisitions, Fowler said, “We were very drawn to the technology and mortgage expertise that it brings. That is certainly at the core of what lenders need. We also appreciate the opportunities to expand its impact.”

Fowler also noted that Stewart was particularly excited to bring together NotaryCam, a leading online notarization provider and original provider of eClosing solutions, with Signature Closers, a signature and technology platform that is part of the Stewart family of companies. Stewart acquired NotaryCam in late 2020 after years of partnership in the digital and eClosing space.

“Bringing these two parts together allows Stewart to deliver any closing experience that our clients desire,” she said. “By leveraging the NotaryCam platform, which is truly one of the best in its class, [if] They want that true remote online notarization experience, we have that capability and more importantly, the depth of expertise we can deliver.”

Stewart’s partnership with CertifID is also part of the experience. CertifID is Stewart’s partner in secure money transfer protection because the company wants to ensure it protects its customers, itself and its shareholders from the increasing threats of wire and title fraud.

“All of these products and services are superior from a standalone perspective,” Fowler said. “Our vision is to go one step further and bring these services together in a streamlined and digitized experience that can then lead to efficiencies for our customers – cost savings, better decision making and ease of use. Now that we’ve brought these capabilities together, the next iteration is to transform them into a streamlined and digitized end-to-end experience.”

The future of Stewart

“Stewart also has two main goals when it comes to how it plans to move forward,” Fowler said, one of which is to continue to grow and expand its automated capabilities.

Part of that is a focus on Stewart Accelerate, the company’s automated title and underwriting decision engine, which benefits lenders by giving them an upfront workflow decision that helps them determine which loans can close faster. Stewart intends to continue enhancing the technology and decision-making capabilities over the next year.

The second goal stems from the company’s desire to streamline and create a solutions platform for its clients across the real estate spectrum – lenders, investors, service providers and other corporate buyers and sellers.

“We intend to continue leveraging Stewart’s assets and capabilities and find ways to connect the components to the benefit of our customers with more integrated solutions and intelligent decisions that result in a superior customer experience,” said Fowler.

Over the past few years, Stewart has demonstrated a commitment to growth, development and movement toward his goals of streamlining the mortgage or buying and selling process for his clients. It shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.

“Momentum is something you see and hear when you talk about Stewart,” Fowler said. “We’re investing in that momentum and that’s going to produce some other great things. We are definitely excited about what we have achieved and where we are going.”

source https://www.bisayanews.com/2022/02/01/the-growth-of-stewart-toward-an-end-to-end-real-estate-experience/