Ken Meccia sees the title insurance industry as a piece of pie.
Meccia, the president of Statewide Abstract Corp., a title insurance agency based in a second-floor office on Mamaroneck Avenue in White Plains, likened the dessert to the overall amount of business available to agencies in the specialized field.
That pie has been shrinking in recent years, he said. An influx of agencies popping up across the tristate area has given way to increased competition in an industry hard hit by the recent recession.
- Statewide Abstract Corp. CEO Alan Meccia and President Ken Meccia.
There are fewer and fewer clients and less business to go around, but Meccia and the rest of Statewide Abstract have used their two greatest assets to keep churning. What he said has helped keep their business afloat is not just the brand recognition that clients associate with their family”™s name, but also the company”™s willingness and ability to provide services that other agencies might not.
Many title insurance agencies specialize in just one sector, like residential deals, but Statewide has built a model out of servicing the entire industry.
“Whether its a co-op or a billion-dollar deal, we try to do it all,” Meccia said. “Our model is to service the whole industry.”
“If you tie yourself into one business … if that market catches a cold, you have pneumonia.”
Joining Ken at the top of the 25-employee company is his brother and company CEO Alan Meccia.
Their father, Jim, began the business in 1979 out of an office on South Broadway in Yonkers. Over the next two decades, the business bounced around several locations in White Plains until it found a permanent home on Mamaroneck Avenue roughly two decades ago.
Statewide Abstract also has a smaller office in Manhattan, and previously had an office in Dutchess County.
Now Statewide Abstract”™s board chairman, Jim Meccia has delegated the bulk of the day-to-day responsibilities to his sons. Most other employees at the company, Ken Meccia said, have been at the company for at least 15 years.
“There”™s a lot to be said about that,” he said. “We know how to get the job done. It”™s very tight-knit ”” everybody knows everybody. It truly is a family operation.”
The bulk of the company”™s business comes from the metropolitan area, but also reaches up to Albany. The brothers have done deals in Texas, California and are currently working on a project in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Statewide Abstract”™s insured properties include The Westchester mall in White Plains, valued at $300 million; Richfield Hospitality”™ Oak Lawn Hotel in Suburban Chicago, valued at $25 million; and Westchester County Medical Center, valued at $11 million.
The company acquired Land Transfer Ltd., another White Plains-based title insurance agency, in October.
It”™s a complex field that requires a lengthy briefing for those unfamiliar with the field to fully understand the crux of the business. One of the main components is working with underwriters and attorneys for both buyers and sellers to get a title report to a closing table in as smooth a process as possible.
“We insure the house that you buy so that there will be no claims against it once you buy the house,” Alan Meccia said, describing the residential side of the business. We would be an agent for Allstate for instance,” before that company insures a home.
He said fraud is ever-prevalent and makes the agency”™s job more difficult. That, and the improper indexing of property records.
Like most industries, the title insurance agency has adapted with expanding technology. When the brothers were first starting out in the family business in the 1980s, they had to go to the county land records office to find information on deeds and mortgages. Now, Meccia said, that information is available online.
Ken Meccia called it “surviving the waves” of the industry, one he said is now on an upward swing.
“It”™s a specialized field and it”™s constantly changing,” Ken Meccia said. “So you always have to be on top of your game.”
