FundingShield Announces Partnership With Pioneer Underwriters and NFP Corporation

Business Wire

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- FundingShield is proud to announce its partnership with Pioneer Underwriters (U.K.) and NFP Corporation (a global top insurance brokerage) in deploying FundingShield’s technology based underwriting services allowing for enhanced crimes policies for New York state attorneys.

FundingShield was able to leverage its vast data from over $500 billion of mortgage closings that identify closing party document deficiencies, control gaps or potential fraud tactics used by closing agents and attorneys to develop the framework to approve attorneys seeking enhanced coverage. The “FundingShield Endorsement” policy specifically covers theft of clients funds by partners and the policy does not have carve outs for physical asset loss only (such as office equipment, machinery etc.), or currency loss only (actual cash deposited in a vault) or narrowly covering only employees versus the partners who have bank account signatory control. All these policy limitations were the only offerings in the market which left clients such as mortgage lenders and other corporations that must use attorney trust accounts as a settlement or transaction mechanism exposed to the risk of theft by a trusted attorney stealing funds.

FundingShield offered Pioneer and NFP its technology based underwriting systems that leverage millions of data points, transaction and historical information to quickly create a risk profile that can feed an insurance underwriter’s approval criteria. This automation allows the underwriter and insurance company to quickly scope and scale an insurance program large enough to offer competitive pricing for a broadened coverage that narrowly covers theft of funds and protects lenders from attorney theft.

“FundingShield’s joint effort with insurance power players Pioneer underwriters out of the UK and NFP Insurance brokers in the U.S. demonstrates our ability to deploy multi industry solution and affirms our commitment to serving mortgage lenders, corporations and individuals that must use third party services. This particular effort allows New York state market participants that must leverage attorney trust accounts to manage risk and exposure during transactions to have enhanced and applicable protection for the risk of Theft of Client Funds,” shared Ike Suri CEO & Chairman of FundingShield.

FundingShield began a process to review thousands of insurance policies it received from New York real estate attorneys during the firm’s lender focused risk management service to examine potential exposure and impact to its mortgage lending clients who would be exposed to theft of settlement funds by attorneys given policy coverage exclusions. The current insurance market conventions (up until the date of this communication) and policy language for coverage of real estate attorneys exposes lenders and investors during the funding and settlement of New York state loans as they specifically excluded coverage for theft by the law firm partners who control the movement of trust account funds.

The New York cyber security DFAS requirements, the OCC Third Party oversight requirements and FFIEC CAT model exist to create guidelines and measurement points for a more secure cyber, operating and risk culture for their covered entities. Lenders, real estate agents, brokers and all other parties in the mortgage value creation chain that must use the services of New York State attorneys should confirm that the attorneys are appropriately insured without coverage gaps. For mortgage lenders in New York state since no Closing Protection Letters are allowed in the State of New York, they must rely on the closing attorneys insurance to afford protection from theft of settlement funds. Errors and Omissions Insurance does not cover intentional acts and therefore does not cover any theft of settlement funds. Thus the creation of the FundingShield endorsement policy helps narrow the gaps in coverage and protect the interest of the attorneys client whether they be mortgage lenders or other corporate transaction based clients.

“We have seen a large increase in client business related to protecting assets or monies in transit given the amount of social engineering and wire diversion by cyber criminals. This concern has been further exasperated and increased demand for our services post the Equifax data breach where the market now must accept that fraudulent personas can be created. Our use of technology allows us to scale an offering with market relevancy quickly and in a fashion that allows competitive pricing even as the program grows due to the amount of quality proprietary transaction level data we can leverage,” commented Adam Chaudhary the President of FundingShield.

Pioneer Underwriters launched in April 2011 and trades as both a risk carrier and MGA/MGU with full delegated underwriting authority in over 120 Lloyd’s class codes using a pre-analyzed broker portfolio as its foundation. Pioneer operates with the backing of Liberty Syndicate 4472 and 30 other markets and manages circa £350m of premium. Pioneer’s 21 underwriting teams operate over 25 underwriting facilities via both Lloyd’s and Non-Lloyd’s platforms across Property, Marine and Casualty classes and has TOBAs with over 150 London and overseas brokers and nationwide distribution capability across the US.

NFP Corporation is a full service global insurance brokerage firm.

#4 largest U.S.-based privately owned broker, as ranked by Business Insurance
#5 largest benefits broker by global revenue, as ranked by Business Insurance
#9 largest property & casualty agency by total 2016 P&C revenue, as ranked by Insurance Journal
#11 global insurance broker, as ranked by Best's Review
#12 broker of U.S. business, as ranked by Business Insurance

FundingShield is a leading financial technology firm offering various technology enabled solutions and is the only provider of active loan level diligence for closing and settlement risk to the residential mortgage industry. The Company’s array of services provides active verification and validation at the loan level for mortgage closings and detailed analysis of the documentation used. Further the firm has developed highly automated systems that track and monitor thousands of third party relationships of a lender, servicer, insurance company, bank or law firm to easily manage third party review, verification and compliance requirements in a customizable solution.