American identity groupan information security company that monitors and repairs security breaches and operates primarily in the wholesale lending space, has also made a name for itself in the title and home warranty industry.
The company now aims to anchor its services in forward and reverse mortgages. Representatives traveled to San Diego last month to meet with lending professionals at the National Association of Reverse Mortgage Lenders (NRMLA) Annual Meeting and Expo.
James Harkins, the company’s vice president of sales, recently spoke with HousingWire‘s Reverse Mortgage Daily (RMD) to talk about the company’s ambition to connect with reverse mortgage professionals.
What the company does
“We do two things: No. 1, monitor,” Harkins said. “We monitor the web and the dark web looking for someone’s information. No. 2: When someone is violated, we fix it. If we discover a breach, we will fix it, regardless of what the breach is.”
Harkins compared the company to Life lockwhich offers a similar type of service but has a greater presence in the retail lending sector.
“We are in the title business and want to delve into the mortgage, reverse mortgage and home warranty spaces,” he said. “We sell or install our identity theft service within a home warranty. So if someone buys a new home, the electricity is covered, the HVAC is covered and that consumer also gets protection from identity theft.”
Selling the service itself is less necessary due to the rampant reports of security breaches and identity theft happening across the country. Children and adults are victims – and that includes seniors.
Looking for the opposite
But forging stronger ties with these industries is an increasing priority for the company, Harkins said.
“When we look at the mortgage industry in our office, we take a broad view of it,” he said. “We make no distinction between a traditional mortgage, a starter on the housing market, someone who refinances or a reverse mortgage. For us, this is all part of the mortgage sector. So we are dealing with consumers and everyone needs to protect their identity.”
But that doesn’t diminish the potential need seniors have for protection against identity theft. And the company came away from the interactions at the NRMLA conference seeing great potential for industry partnerships.
“We came away excited,” Harkins said. “The reverse mortgage representatives who were there were completely invested in the overall concept. Again, I go back to my general statement that every consumer needs identity theft protection. So the mortgage people [that CEO Paul Smith] approached, were very enthusiastic. He works with a law firm on the West Coast, and the partner there specializes in the reverse mortgage and mortgage industry.”
The broader involvement is only in the conceptual stages at the moment, but Harkins gave a glimpse of how this could work by describing the company’s relationship with title firms.
“In the title industry, we are an add-on,” he said. “So if someone is going to close, it’s a consumer service that’s being offered – it’s not embedded. It is introduced during the process and then at the closing table the new home buyer or the person refinancing says: [whether or not] they will take identity theft protection. They will know the price at that point in the conversation or process.
Industrial potential
Harkins said not only can the industry improve the security of their customers by exploring additional offerings such as identity theft protection, but there is also the potential to open a new revenue stream in the process.
“For example, the title industry likes the idea of additional revenue because once the closing happens and that title organization collects the premium for a title policy, that’s a one-time transaction,” he said. “So identity theft protection provides a multi-year revenue stream for the title industry. So No. 1 is about much-needed protection for consumers, and No. 2: it’s an additional source of revenue for every sector we operate in.”
Monitoring property titles could be an important part of the big picture, especially for a demographic that bad actors often target for scams, he added. Not only are credit cards and other sensitive data monitored, but so is a home’s title.
“Because I’m a homeowner here in New Jersey, my title is checked at the county level,” he explained. “If there is any change in my property record at the county level – whether it’s HELOC paperwork being filed, a name change on my title or a lien on my title – anything, American Identity Group pings me to verify: have you done that? implement this change? In the mortgage sector, one of our key components that is particularly relevant is monitoring the home title.”
