Although title insurance exists in the most industrialized countries, in the United States it is much more common than in others. This is due to the fact that here local governments play a smaller role in determining the legality of transfers of ownership than in almost any other place in the world.

In most countries, particularly those influenced by the law of England, the owners of new properties record the newly transferred title to their land with the applicable local government, which then acts as the final arbiter of any dispute that arises as a result of the transaction. In contrast, the majority of US jurisdictions simply record each property transfer without conclusively determining if it is valid or if the property is free of encumbrances or other charges.