Discipline Recommended For Title Agency Owner Accused Of Pocketing Premiums & Failing To Remit To Insurance Underwriter

In St. Paul, Minnesota, the Duluth News Tribune reports:

• An administrative law judge in St. Paul is recommending that the owner of Scenic Title & Abstract be disciplined for failing to remit title insurance premiums in the last four years. Kevin Eckholm, owner of the now-closed title company in Duluth and Two Harbors, was accused in October of fraud and operating without proper licenses after an investigation by the Minnesota Department of Commerce. Eckholm was then accused of collecting title insurance premiums 237 times dating to 2006 and failing to submit that money to the title insurance company. Judge Eric L. Lipman concluded after a hearing in late October that in “nearly 100 separate transactions” Eckholm failed to “maintain sufficient account balances so as to timely remit premiums to Land America.”

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• Title insurance is packaged with the purchase of property to protect new owners or their lenders against unforeseen challenges to their ownership. Minnesota Department of Commerce officials said purchasers of title insurance through Scenic Title should not worry about insurance coverage. “It would be fair to say that they all have title insurance,” Rochelle Barnhart, a former department spokeswoman told the News Tribune in October. “So there is no repercussion to those customers at all.”

For more, see Judge recommends discipline against Duluth title company (Kevin Eckholm, owner of Scenic Title in Duluth and Two Harbors, was accused of collecting title insurance premiums and failing to submit that money to the title insurance company).

See also, Minnesota Department of Commerce press release: Title Insurance Company in Duluth and Two Harbors charged with fraud.