Big Four title insurer Old Republic suffered adversely from the housing market’s rapid cooling in 2022. The century-old firm, which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2023, generated net income during the fourth quarter and the entire year of 2022, but a significant decline was seen last year.

According to Old Republic, its net income of  $512.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2022 decreased from $627.0 million in Q2 in 2021. As compared to $1.534 billion in 2021, the firm generated $686.4 million in net income in 2022. Executives said the company’s annual earnings were in line with expectations despite declining dramatically from last year’s records.

The title insurance sector saw its pretax operating income decline 67.2% year over year to $45 million in 2022 due to a volatile interest rate environment and a dramatic drop in refinance activity.

Generated title insurance net premiums and fees of Old Republic were down to $836.4 million during Q4 2022, a drop of 29.4% compared to the previous year. A yearly drop of 13.0% to $3.8338 billion for title net premiums and fees was recorded for the entire year of 2022.

According to the president of Old Republic’s title insurance segment, Carolyn Monroe, the firm’s commercial title insurance sector performed strongly in 2022, resulting in a relatively small drop yearly. Furthermore, Monroe said that the company will continue improving its technology offerings and usage in 2023 in addition to focusing on its commercial title segment.

Monroe believes that electronic recording with counties is an essential step in their vision of digital intimacy. Their e-recording company EPM had the fastest-growing county connection network of the major platforms throughout 2022. They will now be able to close files electronically in counties throughout the country as a result of the expansion of their network.