Orange Coast Title Passes Best Practices Audit

May 15, 2014

Orange Coast Title Family of Companies reported that it has successfully completed a Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagement No. 16 (SSAE 16 or SOC 1) Type II audit for implementation of ALTA’s "Title Insurance and Settlement Company Best Practices." SSAE 16 is an auditing standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

SSAE 16 verifies a service organization has been through an in-depth audit of its control objectives and control activities to ensure processing and hosting customer data is done safely and securely. The SSAE 16 SOC 1 is a regulatory standard issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accounts (AICPA).

The audit firm of Squar Milner conducted the multi-month audit of the entire OCT Family of Companies.

“Every company in the Orange Coast Title Family of Companies passed the exam without one single exception,” said Bill Burding, the company’s general counsel. “That means all of its 14 companies passed every ALTA protocol analyzing both the main issue to be tested and every subcategory where applicable. This was a daunting task and we believe that this is the most complete examination of any title agency in the country.”

Burding said it took a significant investment in time and money to update and document the company’s processes. Prior to the audit, Orange Coast Title:

  • created two 60-terabyte clouds to store, in an encrypted fashion, consumers’ private, non-public information (NPI) utilizing the newest technology and protections
  • created a back-up cloud in a second location to ensure that in the event of a malfunction or natural disaster, the company could be operational in less than five seconds
  • increased its error and omission, crime and cyber attack insurances above industry standards
  • created numerous policies from clean desk to an automated complaint log so that everything is available at a fingertip
  • created a computer program called EZdocsearch.com, which is an online repository where customers can review all the OCT policies online with a password to see all of the backup documentation that the auditors used to write their report
  • created a daily three-way reconciliation process
  • mandated use of positive pay and foreign and international wire blocks
  • required yearly background checks and increasing the scope of those checks
  • increased scrutiny of outside vendors who have access to NPI

“The OCT Family of Companies is immensely proud of the work that has been completed and is acutely aware that just because it is compliant today, does not mean it will be compliant tomorrow,” Burding said. “To that end, we have instituted a training program to stay vigilant in maintaining its high standards and we have instituted an audit program to make sure that our systems are running as designed. OCT compliments ALTA in its design of Best Practices as the industry standard and will remain as not just the best service provider in the industry, but the most compliant as well.”


Contact ALTA at 202-296-3671 or [email protected].