Do I need owner's title insurance in Florida if I pay cash?

No. On a financed purchase the lender requires a lender's policy as a condition of the loan. A cash purchase has no lender, so no lender requires a policy and there is no lender's policy. Whether to have an owner's policy is the buyer's decision.

A closing can be held with no title insurance at all, and the Department of Financial Services' consumer page has a name for it: "Simple Escrow is a closing in which no title insurance is issued", and a title agent "may conduct a closing when no title insurance is being issued" (Florida DFS, Title insurance overview). The same page says the Department "regulates a real estate transaction only if title insurance was purchased as part of the real estate closing or if the title agency established an escrow fund in connection with a closing."

So what a cash buyer decides is whether the purchase has any title insurance. On a financed purchase Florida requires the buyer to be told that the lender's policy does not protect them (Fla. Stat. § 627.798). On a cash purchase there is not even that policy. The owner's policy is the only one that protects the buyer, with a loan or without one.

Usually, who pays for it. On the Florida Realtors/Florida Bar residential contract, paragraph 9(c) has three boxes and no default among them, and each puts the owner's policy on one side:

• 9(c)(i): the seller chooses the closing agent and pays for the owner's policy and the title search.
• 9(c)(ii): the buyer chooses the closing agent and pays for the owner's policy and the title search.
• 9(c)(iii), the Miami-Dade/Broward provision: the buyer chooses the closing agent and pays the owner's premium; the seller pays for the title search (up to $200 if the blank is left empty), the tax search and the municipal lien search.

The same paragraph sets when the title commitment has to reach the buyer: where its blank is left empty, 15 days before the Closing Date, or 5 days on a cash sale. The buyer has 5 days after receiving it to object in writing, and the seller then has a 30-day Cure Period (Standard A(ii)). Who chooses the title company on the FAR/BAR contract sets out the three boxes, on the page that has every deadline in the contract. A contract on another form says what it says, so read it before assuming.

Often the seller. Who pays is local custom, and it differs by county: in most Florida counties the seller customarily pays for the owner's policy, in some the buyer does, and in some it varies within the county. The purchase contract decides it on every sale, whatever the custom, and the premium is the same whichever side it lands on. Who pays for title insurance in every Florida county has all 67 counties, on a map and in a table.

The side that pays for the owner's policy usually names the closing agent, and on a cash sale there is no lender to approve the choice. The federal rule against a seller requiring the buyer to buy title insurance from a particular title company applies only to a sale financed with a federally related mortgage loan (12 U.S.C. § 2608), so on a cash sale the contract alone decides. Who chooses the title company in Florida has the rule and every county.

What the rule says, which is the same with a loan or without one. Florida's Financial Services Commission adopts by rule "the premium to be charged in this state by title insurers" (Fla. Stat. § 627.782(1)), the rates apply throughout the state, and no one may knowingly quote, charge or collect a premium other than the one adopted, except as a separate provision allows (§ 627.780(1)). The rule is Fla. Admin. Code R. 69O-186.003.

The owner's policy at five prices, with the reissue rate beside the original for a purchase that qualifies in full:

The minimum premium is $100. The premium is paid once, at the closing. The Department's consumer page puts it this way: "Unlike other types of insurance, you pay a one-time premium for your title policy."

The lower reissue schedule most often applies where the seller's own title was insured before, both the agent and the underwriter keep a copy of that earlier owner's policy, and the new policy takes effect less than 3 years after it (R. 69O-186.003(2)(b)). Any coverage above the amount of the earlier policy is charged at the original rate. It is worth asking the seller for the owner's policy from their own purchase. The Florida title insurance calculator works out the premium on any price.

The premium is only the part the rule sets. The search, the examination and the closing services are charged on top of it and shown separately on the closing statement (R. 69O-186.003(11)).

Everything that attaches to a mortgage. A cash buyer has no documentary stamp tax on a mortgage, no intangible tax, no lender's policy and no mortgage to record. The owner's policy, the deed stamps and the recording of the deed still fall where the contract puts them.

A $500,000 purchase paid in cash, beside the same purchase with a $400,000 loan:

The lender's own charges go with the loan as well. Closing costs for a cash buyer in Florida has the rest of the statement.

Loss from a problem with title that already existed when you bought. The standard owner's policy published by the American Land Title Association lists among its covered risks (ALTA Owner's Policy, 2021):

• title vested in someone other than the policy says;
• a defect, lien or encumbrance on the title, including forgery, fraud or a defective document in the chain, and unpaid taxes or assessments;
• unmarketable title;
• no right of access to and from the land;
• a lien or defect recorded between the policy date and the recording of the deed.

The policy also puts a search behind the purchase. Florida does not allow a commitment to be issued until the insurer has determined insurability from "the evaluation of a reasonable title search" (Fla. Stat. § 627.7845(1)). What the record shows then reaches the buyer in the commitment, before the closing: Schedule B, Part I lists what has to be cleared, and Part II what the policy will not cover.

And where the insurer or its agent disburses the closing funds, the insurer insures against liens and defects recorded between the commitment date and the recording of the deed, except matters the insured knows about (§ 627.7841). The policy in front of you, with its own schedules, is what governs.

Problems that arise after the policy date, zoning and building law, and whatever Schedule B, Part II excepts. Florida title insurance: the complete 2026 guide has the exclusions and the standard exceptions in full.

An open permit is the case people most often assume is covered and is not: it is a municipal record, found by a municipal lien search rather than a title search. A lender would insist on dealing with it, but the exposure is the same for a cash buyer: the open permit attaches to the property, and after closing it is the new owner's problem. What happens if there's an open permit on the property before closing?

A cash buyer can also take a title a lender would not lend on, and legal access is the example. A future buyer's title work will raise the same exception, and a future lender may decline the loan over it: an access problem that is tolerable to a cash buyer today is a resale problem later. The survey shows a driveway, but the title work says no legal access. What's the difference?

For as long as the insured owns the property, on the standard owner's form, and it reaches those who take title by operation of law rather than by purchase, such as heirs. The Department's consumer page says "There is no expiration date on the owner's policy." It ends when the insured sells; a buyer from you needs a policy of their own.

Keep the policy with the closing papers, for two reasons. If you sell within 3 years, it is what lets your buyer's policy be priced at the reissue rate. And a cash buyer who borrows against the property later will be asked for a lender's policy on that loan. The rule applies the reissue schedule to a lender's policy on a refinance of property whose owner's policy insured the current borrower, where the agent and the underwriter keep a copy of it (R. 69O-186.003(2)(b)): on a $400,000 loan, $1,230 against $2,075 at the original rate.

By statute, first. Money a Florida title agency receives in escrow is held "in a fiduciary capacity" and is "the property of the person or persons entitled thereto" (Fla. Stat. § 626.8473(2)). It must be placed immediately in an insured financial institution in Florida and kept there until disbursement is properly authorized (§ 626.8473(3)). Behind the agency stands the insurer: a title insurer is liable for the defalcation, conversion or misappropriation, by a licensed agent or agency, of funds held in trust under that section (Fla. Stat. § 627.792).

None of that stops a criminal emailing false wiring instructions. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau describes how it works: criminals compromise a real estate professional's email, watch the conversation until a closing is near, then send the buyer a spoofed message with last-minute changes to the wiring instructions (CFPB, Mortgage closing scams). Call before you wire, on a number you already had, and call after you wire, to confirm the money landed. How to verify a Florida title company, and keep your closing money safe has the rest, including how to check a license on the state's record.