At Port Arthur Abstract & Title Company, maintaining our customers’ trust and confidence is of utmost importance. Congress has enacted the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (Financial Services Modernization Act) that requires providers of financial services, including title insurance companies, to provide written notice of their privacy policies to each of their customers. While this disclosure requirement is relatively new, our commitment to protecting your privacy is not. We will continue to safeguard the privacy of the information you have entrusted to us.

This notice provides you with information on how Port Arthur Abstract & Title Company collects and uses your nonpublic personal information. This notice also details how we maintain the confidentiality of the information. Additionally, this notice details our policies with respect to sharing your nonpublic personal information.

What kind of information do we collect? Port Arthur Abstract & Title Company is primarily in the business of closing real estate transactions and issuing title insurance policies. In doing so, we collect information about you (for instance, your name, address, telephone number), and information about your transaction, including the identity of the real property that you are selling, buying or financing. We may get this information from you or from a lender, attorney, or real estate broker or agent that you have selected. We obtain copies of deeds, notes, mortgages, or other documents that are involved in the transaction. We obtain information from the public records about the property and you so that we can prepare a title insurance policy. When we provide closing, escrow, or settlement services, we may obtain your social security number, escrow account balances, bank account numbers, loan payoff information, and tax information in order to facilitate the transaction. We may receive additional information about you that is contained in loan closing instructions, appraisals, credit reports, or land surveys.

How we use this information. We do not disclose any nonpublic personal information about our customers or former customers to nonaffiliated third parties except as permitted by law. The privacy laws permit some sharing without your approval. We may share internally and with nonaffiliated third parties in order to carry out and service your transaction, to protect against fraud or unauthorized transactions, for institutional risk control, and to provide information to government and law enforcement agencies. We may share information within our corporate family in order to identify and market our own products that we think may be useful to you.

How we protect your information. We restrict access to nonpublic personal information about you to those employees who need the information to provide products or services to you. All of our employees have been trained with respect to our privacy policy and the applicable laws. We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with law to guard your nonpublic personal information. When personal information is sent to us by electronic mail (e-mail) or through our website, such information may not be secure against electronic interception.

Other Websites. Our website contains links to websites created and maintained by other parties. Those linked websites are not subject to our privacy policy. We make no representations or warranties as to the accuracy of the information contained on such websites, nor the applicability of their privacy policies, if any.

Underwriters. When a commitment for title insurance is issued, you will receive a copy of the privacy policy for the company that has been selected to underwrite your title insurance.

Questions or comments? No response to this notice is required. If you have questions or comments relating to our privacy policy, please write to us at 2950 Turtle Creek Drive, Port Arthur, Texas 77642, or email us at paa@portarthurabstract.com.