The Texas title insurance refinance credit
Texas sets title insurance premiums by law, so every title company in the state charges the identical figure for the same policy. That changes what is worth your time at a Texas closing. The premium is fixed; several other things are not — including a rate-rule discount on a refinance that only applies if the title company knows your prior policy exists. Here is what the state sets, what it does not, and how the refinance credit is calculated.
What the state sets, and what it leaves open.
Most states let title insurers file their own rates, which is why comparison shopping works in Pennsylvania and Florida. Texas does not. The Texas Insurance Code directs the commissioner to fix and promulgate the premium rates, and title insurance companies and agents must use them. There is no negotiating, no volume discount, and no title company that is cheaper than the one across the street.
So a Texas title quote has two halves, and only one of them is settled before you start.
| Set by the state | Not settled in advance |
|---|---|
| The basic premium on the policy | Who pays it — negotiable, and custom varies by region |
| The charge for promulgated endorsements | Which endorsements your lender requires |
| The rate-rule credits, including R-8 | Whether the credit gets applied to your file |
| Escrow, courier, recording and similar service charges |
Ask for an itemized quote rather than a single title figure. The premium line you can check against the state’s published table; the rest is worth reading.
The rates changed on 1 March 2026. The Texas Department of Insurance ordered a 6.2% reduction in basic premium rates, effective 1 March 2026. Any Texas title cost estimate built from a pre-March-2026 table is overstating your premium. If a quote you were given last year is still sitting in a file somewhere, it is now high — in your favor.
One Texas-specific consequence worth knowing if you are looking at a home equity loan: the state base premium for the mortgagee policy is one of only four charges excluded from the 2% fee cap on a Section 50(a)(6) loan. That exclusion is what makes those loans workable at all. If you are in that territory, the Texas cash-out rules cover how the whole fee calculation fits together.
How Rate Rule R-8 is calculated.
When a new loan policy is issued on a loan that takes up, renews, extends or satisfies an existing lien already insured by a loan policy, the new policy is issued in the amount of the new note — and the premium is reduced by a credit.
It is calculated in two steps, and the first one is where the figure comes from.
How the credit is actually built
Step one — find the base
Take the Basic Premium on the written payoff balance of the existing loan, or the original amount of that loan, whichever is less. Note what this is not: it is not the amount of your new loan.
Step two — apply the age percentage
Multiply that figure by the percentage for how old the existing loan policy is. That result is credited against the premium on your new policy.
| Age of the existing loan policy | Credit |
|---|---|
| Four years or less | 50% |
| More than four, less than eight years | 25% |
| Eight years or more | None — basic rate applies |
What that looks like on real numbers
You are refinancing into a new loan of $400,000. Your existing loan was originally $300,000 and the payoff is $280,000. The existing loan policy is three years old.
If the credit were on the new loan
Half the premium on $400,000 — which is how the credit is often described in shorthand.
How the rule computes it
50% of the Basic Premium computed on $280,000 — the lesser of payoff and original amount — credited against the premium on the $400,000 policy.
The credit base is 30% smaller than the new loan. It is still a substantial discount and worth claiming — the point is that it is calculated off the old loan, so the bigger the jump between your old loan and your new one, the smaller a share of the new premium it covers. Budget from the second figure, not the first.
The rule also carries one condition that can wipe the credit out entirely: it does not apply if any property not covered by the existing loan policy is included in the new one. If you have bought the adjoining lot since your last closing and it is going into the new policy, expect the credit to disappear. That is worth raising with your title company early rather than discovering it on the settlement statement.
Same lender? Same title company?
Neither is required. Both come up often enough to be worth answering plainly.
- Same lender is not required. R-8 keys off the existence of a prior loan policy, not on who holds the note. Refinancing away from your current servicer does not cost you the credit.
- Same title company is not required. The rule contains no condition tying the credit to the agent that issued the original policy. Any Texas title company can apply it, because the premium is promulgated and the rule is statewide.
What matters is that a prior loan policy exists, and that its date and amount can be established. Which brings us to the one thing you actually have to do.
The rule is written in mandatory terms — the premium is reduced by a credit, not may be. But a title company cannot compute a credit off a policy it does not know exists, on a date it cannot verify, for an amount it has no record of. Search the file from your last closing and hand over the prior Mortgagee Policy, or at minimum the date and the original loan amount. That single act is what converts an entitlement into a line on your settlement statement.
The question worth asking out loud
If you bought the home rather than refinanced into it, your loan policy may have been issued at the simultaneous-issue rate alongside your owner’s policy — a flat $100 under Rate Rule R-5, provided the policies were issued together, on the same date, with the loan policy no larger than the owner’s.
R-8 computes the credit off the Basic Premium on the old loan amount, not off what you actually paid. So on a refinance following a purchase, ask your title company to show you the computation. Ask it as a question, not as an assertion — but ask it, because it is exactly the kind of thing that gets defaulted rather than calculated.
There is a related rule worth knowing about in the other direction. Under R-6, where a mortgagee policy is requested after an owner policy that excepted to the vendor’s lien, the premium is one-half the basic rate. Different situation, same lesson: Texas title rate rules contain several discounts that only apply when someone identifies the right one.
The credit steps down rather than tapering.
Four years and one day after your loan policy was issued, the credit moves from 50% to 25% — in one step, not gradually. At eight years it reaches zero and the basic rate applies.
I am not going to tell you to refinance because of a title credit. The rate is the rate, and a refinance that does not make sense on its own merits does not become sensible because you saved a few hundred dollars on a policy. But if you are already weighing a refinance and you are sitting near one of those thresholds, it belongs in the arithmetic, and it is the kind of thing a loan officer working from a template will never mention.
Practical version: find the date on your existing loan policy before you decide on timing. If you are at three years and ten months and the refinance was going to happen this year anyway, the difference between closing in six weeks and closing in four months is the difference between a 50% credit and a 25% one on the same transaction.
The wider decision — whether to touch the mortgage at all, and whether a second lien beats a refinance — is a bigger question than closing costs. The blended-rate comparison is where that one gets settled, and the title credit is a rounding error next to it.
Four steps to make sure it is applied.
- Find your prior Mortgagee Policy — the T-2 form from your last closing. It is in the closing package, digital or paper. You need the issue date and the loan amount.
- Give it to the title company at the beginning, not when you are reviewing the Closing Disclosure. Late is when it gets missed.
- Check the settlement statement for the credit line. If you cannot find it, ask directly: was the R-8 credit applied, and what base amount was used? A correct answer names the lesser of your payoff and original loan amount.
- Confirm nothing new is going into the policy. Additional property that was not in the prior policy defeats the credit.
None of this requires you to know title insurance. It requires one document and one question, at the beginning rather than at the end.
This is a small number, and I am telling you about it anyway.
A title credit is not going to change your life. It will not make a bad refinance good, and I would rather you walked away from a marginal deal than closed one because the title policy came in a few hundred dollars cheaper than expected.
But it is your money, it is sitting there in a promulgated rate rule, and borrowers routinely miss it for one dull reason: the prior policy is in a drawer somewhere. So dig it out. Then let us have the real conversation, which is about the rate and the term and whether the whole move makes sense.
Let’s see whether the refinance works before we worry about the title credit.
Send me your current balance, rate and roughly what the home is worth — plus the date on your existing title policy if you can find it — and I will build the whole picture, credit included, at wholesale pricing.
Talk First
Text or email the situation. If you are near the four-year or eight-year mark on your existing policy, I will tell you what the timing is worth. One business day, no pressure.
Or Get Real Numbers
Send the full scenario and I will come back with pricing and a closing cost breakdown that already has the R-8 credit in it, rather than discovering it three days before closing.
Send my scenario →References are to the Texas Title Insurance Basic Manual rate rules R-5, R-6 and R-8, and to Texas Department of Insurance Commissioner’s Order 2025-9697 setting basic premium rates effective 1 March 2026, all current as of July 2026. Rate rules and promulgated premiums change; confirm the current manual and rate table with your title company before relying on any figure. The example is illustrative and does not quote a premium amount. Nothing here is legal advice. Forest Hills Mortgage · Matt Mergo · NMLS #563819. Equal Housing Opportunity.
Reviewed August 2026 · Matt Mergo, NMLS #563819