Shares of Santa Ana-based title insurer First American Financial Corp. slumped for a second day on Monday amid investor concerns about inaccurate foreclosure filings by lenders.
First American’s shares closed down nearly 4% to a market value of $1.45 billion.
The declined outpaced a 0.8% drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index and came on top of a 3% decline on Friday.
The stock was hit by a brewing controversy over what have been dubbed robo-signers—officials at mortgage lenders or special servicers who signed off on scores of home foreclosure documents in a short amount of time.
Some of the documents now have been found to have errors, which raises the prospect of legal action against the new owners of the homes.
First American and other title insurers write policies protecting owners of homes and other real estate from competing claims of ownership.
First American’s key rival, Florida’s Fidelity National Financial Inc., said on Friday it doesn’t expect foreclosure mistakes to become a big issue for the industry.
Title insurance policies include “good faith purchasers” rights that protect against mistakes in documentation, according to Fidelity.
But that didn’t do much to ease worries on Wall Street. Fidelity’s shares fell nearly 2% on Monday.
