A 2021 HousingWire Women of Influence award winner, WFG National Title Insurance Company’s SVP and National Escrow Advisor, Natalie Koonce, is featured in a new WFG Insights video interview, in which she discusses new fraud defenses and process efficiencies within WFG.

In the wake of the Cloudstar breach, host Brian Bushlach asks Koonce how the risk of fraud is impacting the escrow industry.

According to Koonce, fraud is one of the most threatening things we see in our industry, and it prompted the development of WFG’s Loss Recovery Program, which is now in full swing.

Buyers can receive fraudulent emails, disguised to look official, but directing them to send their funds to the criminals. “With these impersonations that we see oftentimes, it is really important that we are educating our consumers and their clients so that they are not victims of these frauds,” Koonce says.

The key to the Loss Recovery Program is education, she explains.

“We’ve revamped the system that we use internally in order for our escrow officers to streamline the process on the recovery piece of it,” Koonce says.  She also discusses the First Watch program, which rewards WFG’s associates for protecting customers by catching potential losses.

Koonce discusses two other WFG innovations – a Multiple-State Solutions team and WFG’s MyHome®.

The Multiple-State Solutions team was created to help with WFG’s direct operations.

“If we have a direct operations team that has a loan officer that happens to do business out of state as well, then they’re able to collaborate with the Multiple-State Solutions team to handle refinances that are outside their particular state,” Koonce says.

She calls MyHome® “a terrific platform,” adding that there are new MyHome® enhancements coming that will take it “to the next level.”

“We have to stay on the edge of technology, watching what’s coming up in our industry, and then filtering that and seeing what we can get to our teams,” Koonce says.  Koonce noted that there is a lot of discussion regarding different types of closings.  “As we look at digital closings going forward, depending on legislation, we have that to consider to open up the options, expand those and leverage that to give our customers and their consumers more options.”

To view the entire interview, click here.