Every closing has an owner’s title insurance premium in it, but who actually writes that check is not set by any state law. It is a market custom — a default baked into the standard purchase contract in that area, built up over decades of local practice. Cross a state line and the default can flip from buyer to seller with no change in what the policy covers or what it costs in total.
Seller customarily pays in these states
- Florida
- Texas
- Illinois
- Arizona
- Nevada
- Washington
- Colorado
- Michigan
Buyer customarily pays in these states
- New York
- Georgia
- North Carolina
- Tennessee
- New Jersey
- Pennsylvania
- Virginia
Split down the middle: California and Ohio
California and Ohio are the two states in this calculator where the baseline model treats the owner’s title premium as a 50/50 split rather than defaulting entirely to one side. In practice, within both states the actual local custom can vary further by county or even by city — this calculator’s split figure is a statewide baseline, not a guarantee of what a specific local contract will say.
| State | Customary payer (owner’s title policy) |
|---|---|
| Florida | Seller |
| Texas | Seller |
| California | Split |
| New York | Buyer |
| Illinois | Seller |
| Georgia | Buyer |
| Arizona | Seller |
| Nevada | Seller |
| Washington | Seller |
| North Carolina | Buyer |
| Tennessee | Buyer |
| Ohio | Split |
| New Jersey | Buyer |
| Pennsylvania | Buyer |
| Colorado | Seller |
| Michigan | Seller |
| Virginia | Buyer |
It changes your cash-to-close, not the total transaction cost
Whoever is the customary payer in a given state is the one whose closing statement shows the owner’s title premium as a line item — and that premium is real money, not a rounding error. On a $400,000 purchase, Florida’s tiered rate schedule ($5.75 per $1,000 on the first $100,000, $5.00 per $1,000 above that) works out to roughly $2,075. New Jersey’s schedule on the same price comes out closer to $1,800. Virginia’s flat $3.70-per-$1,000 rate lands around $1,480. In a seller-pays state like Florida, that amount comes off the seller’s net proceeds; in a buyer-pays state like Virginia or New Jersey, it shows up in the buyer’s cash-to-close.
The custom is a contract default, not a law
In every state this calculator covers, who pays for title insurance is set by the standard purchase contract used in that market — not by statute. It is a negotiable term like any other. In a competitive seller’s market, a buyer in a traditionally seller-pays state may be asked to cover it themselves; in a slower buyer’s market, a seller in a traditionally buyer-pays state may offer to pick it up as a concession. The regional default is just the starting point of the conversation, not the final word.
Why this matters more than it looks like it should
Buyers comparing an all-in cash-to-close number across two states sometimes get tripped up here: a lower sticker price in a seller-pays state can still mean a lower buyer-side closing bill than a higher sticker price in a buyer-pays state, purely because title insurance landed on the other side of the ledger. The premium itself does not change based on who pays it — the American Land Title Association publishes the underwriting logic behind these state-filed rate schedules, and it is identical either way. What changes is which party’s check includes it, which is exactly the kind of detail a side-by-side cash-to-close comparison needs to get right.