Everyone needs it. Everyone has it. So maybe that's why it's easy for most people to take title insurance for granted. Melissa Hall, Andy McGarry, Christy Hockmeyer, Kevin Wood, Shawn Tidwell and the Fidelity National Title Group team aren't most people.

Fidelity National Title brings together Chicago Title, Fidelity National, Lawyers Title and Commonwealth Land Title's national business units under one Atlanta roof. Even though Chicago Title and Fidelity National merged more than 10 years ago, the two companies, as well as others under the Fidelity umbrella, operated as separate brands with separate offices until the beginning of 2010. With 23 professionals including attorneys, appraisers and sales, the national-business-unit office consolidated at Galleria 200 in February. 

Consolidating the four brands and talent each brings to the table strengthens Fidelity's ability to serve institutional, private and publicly traded property owners'  and developers' multi-state title and escrow needs across the U.S. and internationally. The transactions run a gamut of property types, from timberland, manufacturing and R&D facilities to mobile-home-park redevelopment to Park Avenue skyscrapers.

"Now it's so much easier to work together as a team," said Hall, Senior Vice President of Fidelity National and current President of Atlanta's CREW chapter. "It was all about market share, and the way to achieve that was to run each company as a separate brand. Our focus changed from being the biggest dog everywhere to being the best and most profitable."

The move also creates opportunities to emphasize the company's breadth, ability to spread financial risk across the individual title insurers' portfolios and $2.5 billion in reserves, an especially important consideration amidst of the past 18 months' economic turmoil.

"Nobody cared about the financial stability of their title insurer two years ago," Hockmeyer said. "Now they do."