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Enlarge This Image"I really thought they'd added an extra digit," he said.
But the servicer that had requested the policy — nominally Zions Bancorp., though like many regional banks, the company outsources its servicing and does not involve itself in loan-level decisions — wouldn't back down. The backdating was appropriate because "Had there been damage to your property during the uninsured time … you would have benefited significantly," the servicer said in one letter.
The Mortgage Bankers Association told American Banker that retroactive coverage is necessary to prevent gaps in insurance. But asked for an opinion on backdating a policy by nine months, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners told American Banker that insurance is "prospective in nature." Therefore, policies "should not be back-dated to collect premiums for a time period that has already passed," the trade group for state insurance regulators said.
The case got stranger when Golant's client visited the address listed for the insurer in an unsuccessful attempt to sort things out, he said. While the people there claimed to represent the servicer, they were operating out of an office belonging to a force-placed policy insurer since acquired by QBE Insurance Group.
Golant didn't understand why the insurer would be speaking on behalf of the servicer. But shortly after he began asking questions about the relationship between servicer and insurer, the case settled. Confidentially. At the insurer's request.
With the matter resolved, it would have made sense for a Florida solo practitioner who handles as many as 50 cases at any one time to move on. Golant, however, started investigating the connections between multibillion-dollar banks and specialty insurers.
"Frankly, it was their speed and willingness to settle that made me think they were not at all confident about the arrangement," Golant said. "I was still in the dark. But I got curious."
Collaborating with his mother, Golant says he began to take on more force-placed insurance cases, often agreeing to bill the borrower only if he won. Cases he pointed out to American Banker show no shortage of questionable alleged practices. In some instances, servicers force-placed insurance on borrowers in excess of their mortgage's face value and property's overall worth. (A representative of the Mortgage Bankers Association said the industry often is required to reinsure a property up to the cost of its replacement value, even if that's in excess of the mortgage.)
In other instances, servicers force-placed duplicative insurance on residents of condominium associations that insured their members' properties. In yet more, servicers had stopped advancing the premiums for a delinquent borrower's escrowed private insurance, allowing it to expire. When it did, they bought far more expensive force-placed insurance to replace it, and began advancing the premiums on that. This — a common practice, Golant says — was not just harmful to borrowers. It was inexplicable from the point of view of protecting investors.
What all the cases had in common was astronomically priced force-placed insurance, he said. There is no doubt that borrowers who aren't paying for their own insurance pose a heightened insurance risk. But servicers were billing Golant's clients for policies that cost as much as 10 times as much as the insurance they replaced. In one example confirmed by American Banker, an $80,000 property standing on a $40,000 lot was force-placed with a policy costing $10,000. Put another way, one year of insurance payments would strip away 13% of the structure's total value.
It wasn't just off-brand and subprime servicers who were tacking the high-priced policies on to borrowers' mortgage bills. It was the country's biggest banks, from JPMorgan Chase & Co. to Wachovia, now part of Wells Fargo & Co. Why did they seem so eager to purchase high-priced insurance on the homes of already struggling borrowers?
