What is the difference between an owner's policy and a lender's policy?

An owner's title insurance policy protects the buyer against title defects on the property — undisclosed liens, recording errors, missing heirs, forgery in the chain of title, boundary disputes, and similar. Coverage is for the policy amount (typically the purchase price) and lasts as long as the owner or their heirs hold the property. A lender's policy protects only the lender's secured interest in the property up to the loan balance. The two policies are separate contracts: the owner's policy survives a refinance because it follows the owner; the lender's policy is tied to a specific loan and is replaced at each new financing. On a typical residential purchase closing, both policies are issued simultaneously and the lender's policy is rated at the promulgated $25 simultaneous-issue flat rate.

What is the Florida reissue credit and when does it apply?

The reissue credit is a 30% discount on the owner's-policy premium authorized by F.S. § 627.7825 / OIR Rule 69O-186.003 when a prior owner's policy on the same property was issued less than 3 years before the new policy date. The credit is applied to the lesser of the new policy amount and the prior policy amount — so if the prior policy was $300,000 and the new policy is $500,000, the 30% credit applies to the premium calculated on $300,000 (not the full $500,000 premium). On a refinance, the same credit applies to the new lender's-policy premium. To claim the credit, the closing agent typically requires a copy of the prior owner's policy declaration page; verify with your title agent before assuming the discount.

Does my owner's title insurance policy survive a refinance?

Yes. The owner's policy is a separate contract from the lender's policy and follows the owner, not the loan. When you refinance, the existing owner's-policy coverage continues unchanged — you do not need to buy a new owner's policy. What you do need: a new lender's policy for the new lender (the existing lender's policy is extinguished when the old loan is paid off). The new lender's policy is rated on the full promulgated schedule on the refinanced loan amount. If you refinance within 3 years of your original purchase, the reissue credit applies to the new lender's-policy premium — typically a savings of about 30% on the lender's-policy line.

What does title insurance actually cover?

Title insurance is loss insurance against title defects in existence at the time the policy is issued — it is fundamentally different from property insurance (which covers future loss to the physical property) or liability insurance (which covers future legal liability). Covered defects include: undisclosed liens (tax liens, mechanic's liens, judgments), recording errors at the county clerk, forgery or fraud in the chain of title, missing heirs whose interest was never extinguished, boundary disputes turning on faulty surveys, deeds executed by people without legal capacity, and similar 'cloud on title' problems. The policy pays the lesser of the policy amount and the actual loss; the underwriter also defends against claims (the defense cost is typically the bigger benefit than the indemnity payment). The premium is a one-time charge at closing; there are no renewals.

Is title insurance optional in Florida?

The owner's policy is technically optional in Florida — no statute requires it on a residential purchase. In practice, almost every Florida residential closing includes an owner's policy because the lender requires title clearance and the cost of skipping the owner's coverage is asymmetric: the marginal cost of the owner's policy over the lender's-only configuration is small ($2,075 vs $25 in our $400K example), and the downside of an uncovered title defect is the full purchase price. The lender's policy is NOT optional on a financed transaction — every Florida residential lender requires it as a closing condition. On an all-cash purchase, the buyer can technically forgo title insurance entirely. We don't recommend it; the asymmetry runs strongly against the cash buyer.

Are title insurance closing fees (search, exam, settlement) included in the premium?

No. The promulgated premium under F.S. § 627.7825 covers the underwriter's insurance premium only — it does not include title-search fees, title-examination fees, settlement-agent fees, courier fees, endorsement charges, or any of the other non-insurance closing-side fees. Those fees are competitively set by the closing agent (typically the title agent who issues the policy) and vary by agent and by region. On a typical Florida residential closing, the non-promulgated closing-side fees run an additional $500–$1,500 on top of the promulgated premium. Always request a closing-side fee schedule from the title agent before signing — those fees are negotiable in a way the promulgated premium is not.

How does the simultaneous-issue lender's-policy rate work?

When the owner's policy and the lender's policy are issued at the same closing (the residential-purchase default), the OIR-promulgated lender's-policy rate under Rule 69O-186.003 is a flat $25 for residential transactions under $1M — a deep discount versus the standalone schedule. On a $320,000 residential mortgage, the standalone lender's-policy premium would be $1,675 (rated on the full tier schedule); the simultaneous-issue rate brings that down to $25. The discount reflects the title underwriter's reduced incremental cost — the search and examination work is done once for both policies. The simultaneous-issue rate is not available on a refinance (no contemporaneous owner's policy) or where the owner's policy is deferred — in those configurations, the lender's policy is rated on the full schedule.

Reviewed against F.S. § 627.7825, § 627.778, § 627.7711; OIR Rule 69O-186.003 (Florida title insurance promulgated rate schedule)

Florida Title Insurance Calculator

Q: Who customarily pays for the owner's title insurance policy in Florida?

It depends on the county. In four Florida counties — Miami-Dade, Broward, Sarasota, and Collier — the buyer customarily pays for the owner's policy. Everywhere else in Florida, the seller customarily pays. The Florida Realtors / Florida Bar standard contract (FR/Bar form) at Paragraph 9 encodes this county-specific convention, and most title agents allocate the line item accordingly on the Closing Disclosure. The convention is the default; the parties can vary the allocation by contract. The buyer always pays the lender's-policy premium in a financed transaction, regardless of county — the lender requires the policy and the borrower is the one buying the loan.

Compute the promulgated Florida title insurance premium on a residential or commercial purchase or refinance. Anchored to F.S. § 627.7825 and OIR Rule 69O-186.003, with the simultaneous-issue lender's-policy rate, the 3-year reissue credit, and the seller-pays / buyer-pays customary allocation surfaced for each Florida county.

Calculator

Adjust the inputs below; the result updates instantly.

Transaction

Purchase price ($)

$400,000

Loan amount ($)

$320,000

County

In Miami-Dade, Broward, Sarasota, and Collier counties, the BUYER customarily pays for the owner's title insurance policy. Everywhere else in Florida, the SELLER customarily pays. The customary allocation drives which side of the closing table absorbs the premium and is the most-common source of mis-quoted closing costs. The contract can vary the allocation; the convention is the default and is what the FR/Bar standard contract assumes.

Transaction type

On a purchase, both an owner's policy and a lender's policy are typically issued at the same closing. On a refinance, there is no new owner's policy — the existing owner's-policy coverage survives the refinance, and only a new lender's policy is rated. The promulgated-rate schedule applies to whichever policy is being issued.

Simultaneous issue

Owner's and lender's policies issued simultaneouslyWhen the owner's policy and the lender's policy are issued at the same closing (the residential-purchase default), the OIR-promulgated lender's-policy rate is a flat $25 — a deep discount versus the standalone schedule. On a refinance or a deferred-lender's-policy issuance, the lender's policy is rated on the full schedule. Keep this checked for a typical residential purchase closing.

Reissue

Prior owner's policy issued within the last 3 yearsF.S. § 627.7825 / OIR Rule 69O-186.003 authorize a 30% reissue credit on the owner's-policy premium when a prior owner's policy on the same property was issued less than 3 years before the new policy date. On a refinance, the same credit applies to the new lender's-policy premium. The credit is applied to the lesser of the new policy amount and the prior policy amount.

Prior owner's policy amount ($)

$400,000

Owner's-policy premium

2,075.00

Lender's-policy premium: $25.00
Reissue credit: $0.00
Total title insurance premium: $2,100.00
Seller's customary share: $2,075.00
Buyer's customary share: $25.00
Customary owner's-policy payer: Seller (Florida statewide convention)
Summary: Total Florida title insurance premium on a $400,000 purchase in Florida (statewide convention): $2,100. Owner's-policy premium of $2,075 is customarily paid by the seller; buyer customarily pays the lender's-policy premium of $25.

Tools to go with this

Need the Florida title insurance verification packet for your next closing?

Fennec Press's Florida real-estate bundle includes a closing-disclosure title-premium verification worksheet, the OIR rate-schedule cheat sheet, a reissue-credit eligibility checklist, and the county-by-county customary-allocation reference card — built for Florida title agents, real-estate attorneys, and buyer-side closing teams.

Open Fennec Press real-estate bundle→

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How this calculator works

Florida is one of the small handful of states where title insurance premiums are promulgated — the Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) publishes a uniform rate schedule that every Florida title insurer must charge. F.S. § 627.7825 mandates the promulgated rate; OIR Rule 69O-186.003 publishes the current schedule. The practical consequence: there is no shopping the title insurance premium across insurers in Florida. A $500,000 owner's policy from Old Republic, First American, Stewart, Fidelity National, or any other licensed Florida title underwriter costs exactly the same dollar amount.

What can vary is the non-promulgated side of the closing — title search, examination, settlement, courier, and endorsement fees. Those are competitive and vary by closing agent. This calculator addresses the promulgated premium only. The line items it surfaces are the same dollar figures that will appear on the buyer's Closing Disclosure under the "Title — Owner's Title Insurance (optional)" and "Title — Lender's Title Insurance" lines.

The calculator handles three pricing mechanics that the OIR-promulgated schedule layers on top of the base rate:

The five-tier base rate schedule — applied to whichever policy is being issued (owner's or lender's), on the face amount of that policy.
The simultaneous-issue lender's-policy rate — a flat $25 for residential transactions under $1M when the owner's and lender's policies are issued at the same closing.
The 3-year reissue credit — a 30% discount on the premium when a prior owner's policy on the same property was issued less than 3 years before the new policy date.

It then surfaces the customary allocation — which side of the closing table customarily pays for the owner's policy — by Florida county. The convention is county-specific in a way most buyers and sellers don't realize until they're at the closing table.

The promulgated rate schedule

The OIR-promulgated owner's-policy rate schedule under F.S. § 627.7825 / OIR Rule 69O-186.003 is a five-tier marginal-rate structure. Each tier applies to the slice of the face amount that falls within that tier — like a marginal income tax bracket.

| Tier | Face amount range | Rate per $1,000 | Cumulative at top | |------|-------------------|-----------------|-------------------| | 1 | $0 to $100,000 | $5.75 | $575 | | 2 | $100,000 to $1M | $5.00 | $5,075 | | 3 | $1M to $5M | $2.50 | $15,075 | | 4 | $5M to $10M | $2.25 | $26,325 | | 5 | Over $10M | $2.00 | (no cap) |

The first $100,000 of any policy thus carries a minimum premium of $575, a floor that affects every Florida title insurance calculation. The "cumulative at top" column is the total premium when the face amount exactly hits each tier's upper boundary; it's a useful reference for spot-checking the calculator's output.

A few worked numbers from this schedule:

$200,000 owner's policy: $575 + 100 * $5.00 = $1,075
$400,000 owner's policy: $575 + 300 * $5.00 = $2,075
$1,000,000 owner's policy: $575 + 900 * $5.00 = $5,075
$2,500,000 owner's policy: $5,075 + 1,500 * $2.50 = $8,825
$7,500,000 owner's policy: $15,075 + 2,500 * $2.25 = $20,700

The schedule has not been amended in the last several Florida legislative sessions; the marginal rates above represent the current OIR-promulgated structure as of mid-2026.

The simultaneous-issue lender's-policy rate

When a residential purchase closes with both an owner's policy and a lender's policy issued at the same time — the residential-purchase default — the OIR-promulgated lender's-policy rate is a flat $25 for transactions under $1M. That's not a typo. The discount reflects the title underwriter's reduced incremental cost: the title search, examination, and underwriting work is done once for both policies, so the marginal cost of writing the lender's policy on top of the owner's policy is small.

On a $320,000 residential mortgage, the standalone lender's-policy premium (rated on the full schedule) would be $1,675. The simultaneous-issue rate brings that down to $25 — a $1,650 savings to the buyer. The simultaneous-issue rate is only available when:

An owner's policy is being issued at the same closing.
The transaction is a purchase, not a refinance.
The residential transaction is under $1M (the rule has a separate framework for transactions above $1M; consult the OIR rate filing for the higher-value rate).

On a refinance, there is no contemporaneous owner's policy (the existing owner's-policy coverage survives), so the simultaneous-issue rate does not apply. The new lender's policy on a refinance is rated on the full schedule on the loan amount — frequently the largest line item on the refinance Closing Disclosure.

The 3-year reissue credit

F.S. § 627.7825 / OIR Rule 69O-186.003 authorize a 30% reissue credit on the owner's-policy premium when a prior owner's policy on the same property was issued less than 3 years before the new policy date. The credit is applied to the lesser of the new policy amount and the prior policy amount — so the savings scale with the prior policy, not the new one.

A worked example: a homeowner who bought a $400,000 home and bought a $400,000 owner's policy 18 months ago sells the home to a new buyer for $500,000. The new owner's policy is written for $500,000, with a premium of $2,575. The reissue credit applies to the premium on the lesser amount ($400,000) — that premium is $2,075, and 30% of that is $622.50. The new owner's-policy premium net of the credit is $2,575 minus $622.50 = $1,952.50.

The credit is meaningful on flipped or quickly resold properties but rarely available on the typical Florida residential transaction — most homes are held longer than 3 years. The credit is more valuable on refinances: a homeowner who refinances within 3 years of their original purchase gets the 30% discount applied to the new lender's policy, typically saving several hundred to a few thousand dollars on the lender's-policy line.

To claim the credit, the closing agent typically requires a copy of the prior owner's policy declaration page. Verify with your title agent before assuming the discount on a closing-cost estimate.

County-by-county customary allocation

Florida title insurance custom is the single most-confusing piece of the residential-closing puzzle for out-of-state buyers and sellers. The convention varies by county:

Miami-Dade, Broward, Sarasota, and Collier counties: the buyer customarily pays for the owner's policy.
Every other Florida county: the seller customarily pays for the owner's policy.

The lender's-policy premium is always customarily paid by the buyer in a financed transaction, regardless of county — the lender requires the policy, and the borrower is the one buying the loan.

The Florida Realtors / Florida Bar standard contract (FR/Bar form) at Paragraph 9 encodes this county-specific convention. Most title agents allocate the line item accordingly on the Closing Disclosure. The convention is the default; the parties can vary the allocation by contract, and they frequently do on distressed or new-construction transactions.

The practical implication of the county-specific convention: a $1.5M home sold in Palm Beach County (statewide convention) carries a $6,325 owner's-policy premium that the seller customarily absorbs. The same $1.5M home sold in Broward County (10 miles south, different convention) carries the same $6,325 premium — but the buyer customarily absorbs it. A buyer crossing the Miami-Dade / Broward / Palm Beach line in their house hunt who hasn't been told this can find themselves with a $6,000 swing in closing-table exposure that wasn't on the original good-faith estimate.

Worked examples

Example 1: $400,000 Pinellas County single-family purchase

A buyer purchasing a $400,000 single-family home in Pinellas County with a $320,000 mortgage. Owner's and lender's policies issued simultaneously. No prior owner's policy.

Owner's-policy premium: $575 + 300 * $5.00 = $2,075
Lender's-policy premium (simultaneous issue): $25
Reissue credit: $0 (no prior policy)
Total title insurance premium: $2,100

Pinellas County is statewide-convention, so the seller customarily pays the $2,075 owner's-policy line, and the buyer customarily pays the $25 lender's-policy line. The buyer's exposure is essentially the simultaneous-issue rate — a deep discount over the standalone schedule.

Example 2: $1.5M Miami-Dade County purchase

A buyer purchasing a $1,500,000 single-family home in Miami-Dade County with a $1,200,000 mortgage. Owner's and lender's policies issued simultaneously. No prior owner's policy.

Owner's-policy premium: $5,075 + 500 * $2.50 = $6,325
Lender's-policy premium (simultaneous issue): $25
Reissue credit: $0 (no prior policy)
Total title insurance premium: $6,350

Miami-Dade is one of the four buyer-pays-owner-policy counties. The buyer customarily absorbs both the owner's policy ($6,325) and the lender's policy ($25) — a $6,350 buyer-side exposure compared with the $25 buyer-side exposure in the Pinellas example. The seller's customary share is $0.

Example 3: $1.5M Miami-Dade purchase with reissue credit

Same transaction as Example 2, except the seller is reselling the property after 2 years and provides their prior owner's-policy declaration page showing a $1,000,000 policy issued less than 3 years before this closing.

Owner's-policy premium (before credit): $6,325
Reissue credit: 30% of the premium on $1,000,000 ($5,075) = $1,522.50
Owner's-policy premium (net): $6,325 minus $1,522.50 = $4,802.50
Lender's-policy premium (simultaneous issue): $25
Total title insurance premium: $4,827.50

The reissue credit shaves $1,522.50 off the buyer's customary share, bringing the buyer's total exposure down to $4,827.50 — a meaningful enough reduction to be worth confirming with the title agent before signing the contract.

What this calculator does not do

This calculator handles the OIR-promulgated title insurance premium only. It does not:

Compute non-promulgated closing-side fees. Title-search, examination, settlement-agent, courier, and endorsement fees are not part of the promulgated rate; they are competitively set by the title agent. On a typical Florida residential closing, the non-promulgated fees run an additional $500–$1,500 on top of the promulgated premium. Always request a closing-side fee schedule from the title agent.
Calculate the Florida documentary stamp tax, mortgage tax, or intangible tax. Those are separate taxes under F.S. § 201.02, § 201.08, and § 199.133 — use the Florida Documentary Stamp Tax Calculator for that side of the closing.
Handle commercial transactions over $1M lender's-policy size. The simultaneous-issue rate framework for residential under $1M is what's surfaced here; commercial closings and large residential closings have a slightly different OIR-filed rate structure. Consult the current OIR rate filing for high-value commercial.
Verify reissue-credit eligibility. The 3-year window starts on the prior policy's issuance date; the calculator assumes the user's "within 3 years" input is accurate. The closing agent will require documentary proof (the prior policy declaration page) before applying the credit.

How this page is maintained

The OIR-promulgated Florida title insurance rate schedule has been stable across the last several Florida legislative sessions. We refresh the rate constants and the linked OIR rate filing each time the OIR publishes a new rate schedule under Rule 69O-186.003, and after each Florida legislative session in case of statutory change to F.S. § 627.7825. We also track changes to the county-by-county customary-allocation convention, though that is set by industry practice rather than statute and changes very slowly.

Last reviewed: 2026-05-15 against F.S. § 627.7825, § 627.778, § 627.7711, and OIR Rule 69O-186.003.

FAQ

Common questions

Edge cases and clarifications around florida title insurance calculator.

Florida is a 'promulgated rate' state for title insurance — F.S. § 627.7825 requires the Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) to publish a uniform rate schedule that every Florida title insurer must charge. The current schedule lives at OIR Rule 69O-186.003. That means there is no shopping the premium across insurers — a $500,000 owner's policy from Old Republic, First American, Stewart, Fidelity National, or any other licensed Florida title underwriter costs exactly the same dollar amount. What can vary across insurers and closing agents is the non-promulgated side: title-search fees, settlement fees, examination fees, and endorsement charges. Those are competitive. The calculator addresses the promulgated premium only.

Resources

Links marked sponsoredmay earn TheFennecLab a commission. They do not affect the calculator's output. See disclosures.

Florida DBPR Online Sunshine — F.S. § 627.7825 — OIR-promulgated title insurance premium rates
Florida DBPR Online Sunshine — F.S. § 627.778 — Florida title insurance regulation framework
Florida DBPR Online Sunshine — F.S. § 627.7711 — title insurer financial responsibility requirements
Florida OIR Rule 69O-186.003 — Title Insurance Rate Schedule — current promulgated rate schedule, simultaneous-issue, and reissue credit
Florida Office of Insurance Regulation — Title Insurance Rate Filings — OIR administrative guidance and rate-filing repository