On a home at the New Hanover County median of $464,000, an owner’s title insurance policy runs $1,067.88 at the filed North Carolina rate, plus $28.50 if a lender’s policy is issued at the same time. The premium is set by a filed rate schedule rather than by the company, so shopping around will not change it, which makes the one real saving available to you worth knowing about.
Title insurance is the line on a buyer’s closing statement that people skip over, pay, and never think about again. That is mostly fine. It is a one time premium for coverage that lasts as long as you own the house, and the claims it pays are the kind nobody sees coming: a missed heir, an old unreleased deed of trust, a boundary line that does not match the deed.
What buyers moving here do not expect is that the price is not negotiable in the usual sense. North Carolina rates are filed and approved, and the schedule says plainly that they apply to any policy insuring property in this state, no matter where the policy is written. So the question is not who is cheapest. The question is which policy you are buying, and whether you qualify for the reissue rate.
What the filed rate schedule actually says
The figures below come from the North Carolina title insurance rate schedule published by Investors Title, a member of the North Carolina Title Insurance Rating Bureau, effective October 1, 2025 and read on November 2, 2026. The rate is quoted per thousand dollars of coverage and it steps down as the policy amount rises.
- Up to $100,000 of coverage: $2.78 per thousand North Carolina title insurance rate schedule, Investors Title, effective October 2025
- $100,001 to $500,000: add $2.17 per thousand North Carolina title insurance rate schedule, Investors Title, effective October 2025
- $500,001 to $2,000,000: add $1.41 per thousand North Carolina title insurance rate schedule, Investors Title, effective October 2025
- Minimum premium: $56.00 North Carolina title insurance rate schedule, Investors Title, effective October 2025
- Lender’s policy issued at the same time as the owner’s policy: $28.50 for each loan policy North Carolina title insurance rate schedule, Investors Title, effective October 2025
- Enhanced ALTA Homeowner’s Policy on a qualifying one to four family home: the regular rate plus 20 percent North Carolina title insurance rate schedule, Investors Title, effective October 2025
- Title commitment: $16.50 North Carolina title insurance rate schedule, Investors Title, effective October 2025
The brackets stack rather than replace each other, which is the part people get wrong. You do not pay $2.17 per thousand on the whole purchase price. You pay $2.78 on the first hundred thousand and $2.17 on the amount above it.
What that works out to on a real Wilmington purchase
Take the New Hanover County median sale price of $464,000 for the three months ending September 2026, from our New Hanover County market update. The first $100,000 of coverage costs $278.00. The remaining $364,000 costs $789.88. Add them and the owner’s policy premium is $1,067.88. If you are financing and the lender’s policy is issued at the same closing, add $28.50 and you are at $1,096.38.
At $750,000 the arithmetic is $278.00 plus $868.00 plus $352.50, or $1,498.50 for the owner’s policy.
If you want the enhanced ALTA Homeowner’s Policy instead of the standard owner’s policy, the filed rate adds 20 percent. On that $464,000 purchase, 20 percent of $1,067.88 is $213.58, bringing it to $1,281.46. Whether that is worth $213.58 depends on the property, and it is a conversation for your closing attorney rather than for a blog post.
The one place you can genuinely save money
This is the part we want every buyer here to know, because it is real money and almost nobody asks for it.
The filed schedule includes a reissue rate. If a title policy was issued on the identical property within the past fifteen years, the rate drops to 50 percent of the regular rate up to the amount of that prior policy, with the regular rate applying only to coverage above it. The catch is in the same paragraph: the prior policy or the old settlement statement has to be provided to the insurer. No document, no reissue rate.
Work it through on the median purchase. Suppose the house you are buying at $464,000 last sold in 2019 for $300,000, and the seller still has their owner’s policy. The first $300,000 of your coverage is priced at half the regular rate, which is $356.00 instead of $712.00. The remaining $164,000 is charged at the regular $2.17 per thousand, or $355.88. Your premium is $711.88 rather than $1,067.88. That is $356.00 saved for asking the seller to dig through a file.
The same reissue provision applies when a builder, developer or subdivider was insured on the land within fifteen years, at half the regular rate up to the sales price of your lot. If you are buying new construction, it is worth asking the builder’s closing coordinator directly.
What the premium does not include
Title insurance is one line in a larger bill, and conflating the two is how buyers end up surprised. North Carolina requires the title opinion of a licensed North Carolina attorney for a policy to issue, and the attorney’s fee for the search, the opinion and the closing itself is separate from the premium. Closing services insurance, which covers the handling of your money at closing, is also priced separately, at $0.69 per thousand up to $100,000 and $0.13 per thousand above that to $500,000. Specific residential endorsements, such as the planned unit development endorsement common in our HOA neighborhoods, run $23.00 each under the same schedule.
For the rest of the closing table, our post on closing costs for a buyer in Wilmington walks through the recording fees, the due diligence fee and the items nobody can quote until they see the address. Our post on whether you need a real estate attorney in North Carolina explains why the attorney is not optional here, and what actually happens on closing day sets out the sequence.
Because the premium is filed, there is no price competition on the policy itself, and anyone telling you they can beat the rate is either quoting a different policy or quoting the attorney’s side of the bill. The place a quote can legitimately differ is the attorney fee, the search cost and which endorsements get added, and those are worth comparing. The reissue rate also depends on cooperation you do not control. A seller who cannot find a fifteen year old policy, or an estate sale where nobody has the file, means you pay the regular rate no matter how diligent you are. And a policy is not a survey. It insures the title, not the location of the fence, which is a separate decision we talk through with buyers at due diligence.
Related questions people also ask
Who pays for title insurance in North Carolina?
In our market the buyer customarily pays for both the owner’s policy and the lender’s policy, and it shows up on the buyer’s side of the settlement statement. Nothing in the contract requires that split, so it can be negotiated like any other cost, and a seller paying a buyer’s closing costs may absorb it that way. What is not negotiable is the premium itself, because North Carolina rates are filed and approved. Your closing attorney will tell you exactly which side each line falls on before you sign.
Is the lender’s title policy the same as an owner’s policy?
No. The lender’s policy protects the lender’s interest in the loan amount and shrinks as the loan is paid down, while an owner’s policy protects your equity for as long as you own the home. If you buy only the lender’s policy, a title defect could wipe out your down payment while leaving the lender whole. Under the North Carolina schedule a lender’s policy issued at the same time as an owner’s policy costs an extra $28.50, which is why we tell buyers not to skip the owner’s policy to save money.
Do I need title insurance if I am paying cash?
There is no lender to require it, so nobody will make you buy a policy, but a cash purchase is exactly when a title defect falls entirely on you. The risks the policy covers, such as an unreleased lien, a forged signature in the chain or an heir nobody knew about, do not care how you paid. For a one time premium that is a small fraction of a Wilmington purchase price, most of our cash buyers decide the coverage is worth it. Talk it through with your closing attorney, who will have read the title search.
Ask the seller, or the builder’s closing coordinator on a new build, whether a title policy was issued on the property in the last fifteen years, and ask for a copy. That one question is worth hundreds of dollars on a typical Wilmington purchase, and we are glad to walk through your closing figures line by line with you before you are at the table.
Sources: North Carolina title insurance rate schedule published by Investors Title Insurance Company, a member of the North Carolina Title Insurance Rating Bureau, schedule effective October 1, 2025, read November 2, 2026; Redfin New Hanover County housing market, median sale price for the three months ending September 2026.
