Irvine-based Fidelity National Title Co. is planning to spend at least $75 million within the next three years to create a new system for transacting title insurance over the Internet.
“We will significantly change the way business is done,” said Pat Stone, president and chief operating officer of Fidelity National, the nation’s largest title insurance company, with 30% of the market.
The work on the new system will be led by Santa Ana-based Micro General Corp., which is 69% owned by Fidelity. Stone and Fidelity chairman Bill Foley are co-chairmen of Micro General. Micro General manages Fidelity’s computer system and is planning to spin off Internet companies such as its escrow.com e-commerce play.
The size of Fidelity’s investment has yet to be decided. Micro General Corp. Chief Executive John Snedegar said it might reach $100 million.
At least three contractors have won work as a result of the new investment. Last week, Micro General announced it has selected IBM Corp., together with Long Beach-based Web integrator 4GL Solutions Inc. and Oakland-based e-business automation software provider Versata, to create a comprehensive set of online offerings for the title insurance industry.
Stone said the current system for title insurance is too awkward and slow. Fidelity National alone ships 12,000 monthly orders through a variety of methods, such as telephone, fax and regular mail.
“A typical turnaround is eight to 10 days,” Stone said. “In 18 months, we’ll be down to 48 hours or less. We’ll have a truly national system.”
The Web-based application for real estate-related transactions is expected to be completed by July 2001 and have an estimated 13,000 users once it’s up and running.
IBM is supplying the hardware and software, including its RS/6000 server, DB2 Universal Database and Websphere software. 4GL Solutions is providing the Web-integration platform and Versata is creating a rules-based software application.
“This project is likely to touch every real estate office, financial institution and insurance office in the country during the span of its lifetime,” said Rod Adkins, general manager for the RS/6000 at IBM. n
