Loan Protector, a leader in providing lender placed insurance and insurance tracking services to the mortgage industry, has seen a tremendous 150% growth in the last five years, with even more potential in 2016.

Since 2008, Loan Protector has been part of Willis Group Holdings, a global insurance brokerage. In January 2016, the company reached another milestone when Willis merged with Towers Watson, forming Willis Towers Watson, a $9 billion organization with 40,000 associates across the globe.

“The combined organizations’ size along with its financial industry expertise will allow us to leverage existing client relationships, will significantly expand our market reach, and enhance our carrier partnerships to provide the most competitive lender placed insurance rates — with rate savings passed on to our mortgage servicing clients’ borrowers,” said Dennis Swit, managing partner and CEO of Loan Protector.

Loan Protector’s growth has been powered by the company’s continuous investment in technology, which allows it to provide customized solutions for its clients even in a rapidly changing environment.

“Loan Protector’s investment in technology exceeds $3 million annually as we adapt our systems to meet regulatory changes and provide system enhancements to meet the specific needs of our clients,” said Serf Hernandez, COO of Loan Protector.

Dramatic growth can create a whole new set of complications, but Loan Protector’s automated systems and strategic business partnerships provide the ability to scale operations with minimal human capital impact within its primary operations in Cleveland, Ohio. 

“Our team of experienced mortgage servicing professionals understands the challenges surrounding rapid growth and has done an excellent job of adjusting our operations to keep pace,” Swit said.

NO. 1 PRIORITY

With increased regulation and regulatory scrutiny, Loan Protector’s experience in handling risk for mortgage servicers is more important than ever. Loan Protector has established a dedicated team of compliance and risk management professionals to monitor and adapt its operations and services as regulations change, providing oversight for the company’s outsourced insurance tracking and lender placed insurance programs.

“While there are many problems facing mortgage servicers, we believe the most critical problem is regulatory compliance,” said Ken Evans, compliance officer of Loan Protector. “Our No. 1 priority is to protect our clients from financial, reputational and security risks related to lender placed insurance and insurance tracking.”

Loan Protector’s compliance team works to identify regulatory changes and risk, interprets the potential impact to its clients and their borrowers and works closely with its operations team to implement regulatory rules and monitor program output to ensure that program changes comply with regulations. 

The company created a Compliance Management System (CMS) to provide the framework for its regulatory monitoring process and gives each client a copy of its Vendor Governance Playbook. This resource contains detailed reports including Loan Protector’s SOC II, Business Continuity Plan, Disaster Recovery Plan, program business rules and procedures, along with required regulatory materials.

“With the unparalleled support of Willis Towers Watson, Loan Protector can provide more than just lender placed insurance. Our Willis Towers Watson’s Financial Institution Practice leaders are experts in developing comprehensive risk management programs to protect every aspect of our clients operations,” Evans said.

“While our products protect the assets within the servicer’s portfolio, our programs are equally important to protect the servicer from financial, reputational, regulatory and data security risks.”

TRUSTED PARTNERS

In the current regulatory environment, mortgage servicers are looking to insurance tracking providers to mitigate risk, improve service levels and reduce operational costs. Loan Protector offers a variety of outsourced insurance tracking programs designed to match the unique needs of each client.

“Our staff of mortgage servicing professionals, combined with our insurance tracking automation, provides a level of competency not easily achieved in a typical mortgage servicing operation,” Hernandez said. 

For clients who want a fully outsourced insurance tracking application, Loan Protector offers EasyTrack. This application redirects all borrower insurance mail to a dedicated P.O. box, which allows Loan Protector to collect and open the mail daily. The borrowers’ insurance documents are then imaged and input into EasyTrack and matched to the proper loan and collateral through Loan Protector’s proprietary matching algorithms.

If exposures are identified, exposed loans enter a borrower notice of insurance requirement letter cycle in an effort to obtain evidence of borrower provided insurance.  In this streamlined system, EasyTrack can efficiently pursue missing or deficient insurance data while ensuring that no uninsured properties fall through the cracks.

“As an industry leader of insurance data aggregation (Electronic Data Interchange), Loan Protector has partnered with more than 800 homeowners’ insurance carriers to provide insurance renewal data related to our clients’ mortgage portfolios electronically,” Swit said. “The data that we receive systematically updates borrower insurance information, allowing us to fluidly identify borrowers who have failed to maintain required insurance.”

In the event of an uninsured loss due to unforeseen circumstances, Loan Protector’s lender-placed insurance programs indemnify its clients, with coverage provided by the lender-placed insurance master policy’s automatic coverage endorsement.

EasyTrack also provides an incoming and outbound customer service call center, payment of escrowed premiums and loss draft processing. EasyTrack gives tracking clients secure online access to everything related to their clients’ insurance data, including images of insurance documents, notification letters, access to customer service call recordings and online reports.

This full-outsourcing approach eliminates incoming insurance mail, time-consuming escrow premium payment functions and risk from uninsured properties while remaining compliant with FHFA, FNMA, FDIC and CFPB requirements. EasyTrack interfaces with most mortgage servicing systems and fully integrates with Loan Protector’s lender placed hazard, flood and REO hazard, flood and liability programs.

“It’s important for mortgage servicers to choose a partner that understands the risks that they face on a daily basis and can develop a custom program to protect their organization and their borrowers,” Evans said.

TAILORED OPTIONS

Knowing that not all mortgage servicers are prepared to outsource certain functions within their operations, Loan Protector has developed a suite of products that provide self-service and partial outsourcing solutions.

“Mortgage portfolios come in all shapes and sizes. Some portfolios have complex insurance requirements and others are pretty straightforward. All of our programs are customized to meet the specific needs of our mortgage servicing clients,” Swit said.

Loan Protector’s EasyNOR (Notice of Requirement) program serves clients who only need to automate borrower notification and lender placed insurance.

After receiving an electronic file with borrower and insurance data from a client’s mortgage servicing system, EasyNOR scans the portfolio to identify deficiencies and exposures. The system sends a series of notice of requirement letters to borrowers and, crucially, provides automatic coverage for uninsured losses which occur during this notification cycle. If there’s still an exposure at the end of the notification cycle, Loan Protector provides lender placed insurance.

EasyNOR reduces operational expenses associated with insurance tracking and borrower mailings and provides simplified, automated billing of lender placed insurance, eliminating manual keying of premiums at a loan level.

“Each of our lender placed insurance programs provide some level of automation.  Combining automation, a tenured staff of insurance and mortgage servicing professionals, and a comprehensive lender placed insurance program provides our clients with a level of comfort knowing that we’ve got them covered,” Swit said. 

Another Loan Protector program, EasyData, works on servicer needs from another angle, allowing clients to access borrowers’ insurance information electronically, reducing their incoming mail volume by up to 65%. 

“We continue to add Electronic Data Interchange Carriers to our exchange platform, which significantly reduces the amount of insurance mail that we or our clients need to process,” Hernandez said.

BRIGHT FUTURE

Loan Protector’s significant investments in talent, facilities and strategic business partnerships have led to new business acquisitions, improved client on-boardings and increased flexibility with new and organic client growth.

“Cross-sell opportunities with our Willis Towers Watson teammates will open many doors, provide additional credibility in the market, and allow Loan Protector to offer a total suite of products to our clients that no other organization in our industry can provide,” Swit said.

“Vendor oversight requirements have caused mortgage servicers to take a hard look at their current insurance tracking programs and have provided Loan Protector with the opportunity to share our story and our value proposition. We are very excited to be part of Willis Towers Watson and about the opportunities it will bring to us in 2016.”