How Much Is Title Insurance in Ohio? 2026 Rates and Who Pays in Columbus

Title insurance in Ohio costs $5.80 per $1,000 of coverage on the first $250,000, then $4.10 per $1,000 up to $500,000. On a $350,000 Columbus sale that is an $1,860 owner's policy, and in central Ohio the seller is the one who customarily writes that check. The filed rate schedule changed for 2026, the first change in more than twenty years.

That last part is why this is worth 1,500 words instead of a text message. I pull the prior owner's policy on every listing I take, because a policy less than ten years old cuts the new premium by 30 percent, and almost nobody produces it unless someone asks. That single sheet of paper is worth several hundred dollars at a closing table and it usually sits in a drawer.

Here is the whole cost, where it comes from, and the three levers that move it.

How Much Is Title Insurance in Ohio?

Ohio title premiums are not a quote. They are a filed rate. The Ohio Title Insurance Rating Bureau files a rate manual with the Ohio Department of Insurance, and that manual states its provisions are binding on all OTIRB members and their agents unless an individual company has filed its own approved deviation. The current manual is effective as to orders received on or after March 1, 2026.

That schedule is new. Deeds.com reported the 2026 rates as the first increase in Ohio owner's title premiums since 2002, quoting Old Republic Title's Frank J. Rose, who tied it to Ohio home values roughly doubling since the schedule was last set. If you are working from a title cost calculator you bookmarked a few years ago, it is quoting a schedule that no longer exists.

Here is the schedule for a standard owner's policy, straight out of Rule PR-1:

Coverage bracket	Owner's policy rate, per $1,000 or fraction of it
First $250,000	$5.80
Over $250,000 up to $500,000	add $4.10
Over $500,000 up to $1,000,000	add $3.20
Over $1,000,000 up to $5,000,000	add $3.10
Minimum premium, any policy	$225.00

Run that against the prices this market actually trades at. The Columbus median close in July 2026 was $350,000 across 3,158 recorded sales in our MLS, and the Westerville median for 2026 sits at $440,500. The last column adds a lender's policy issued at the same time as the owner's policy, which the rate manual prices at a flat $150 for a standard loan policy.

Sale price	Owner's policy	Simultaneous lender's policy	Combined
$250,000	$1,450	$150	$1,600
$300,000	$1,655	$150	$1,805
$350,000 (Columbus median)	$1,860	$150	$2,010
$440,500 (Westerville median)	$2,233	$150	$2,383
$500,000	$2,475	$150	$2,625
$750,000	$3,275	$150	$3,425

Two notes on reading that table. The rate is charged per thousand or any fraction of it, so an odd sale price rounds up to the next full thousand of coverage. And the enhanced product, called the Homeowner's Policy of Title Insurance, is priced at the standard rate plus fifteen percent with a $250 minimum. If your closing package quotes a number about fifteen percent over the table above, that is what you are being sold, and it is worth asking what the extra coverage does before you decide.

Who Pays for Title Insurance in Columbus?

Custom, not law. No Ohio statute assigns the owner's policy to either side.

In central Ohio the seller pays for the owner's policy in full. Ohio Real Title puts the regional split plainly: the owner's policy is split between buyer and seller in northeast Ohio and paid in full by the seller in central Ohio. The buyer generally pays for the lender's policy, because the lender is the one requiring it.

That is the default. It is not the rule. Every one of those charges is a negotiated line in the purchase contract, and in a market where sellers are giving concessions it moves. If you are a buyer writing an offer here, know that the owner's policy is worth roughly $1,860 on a median-priced house, and that asking the seller to keep paying it is a much cheaper ask than a price reduction of the same size feels.

The other side of the same coin: if you are selling, this is a real line in your net sheet, and it belongs next to the conveyance fee and the commission when you build it. I go through the full seller cost stack in what it costs to sell a house in Columbus.

What Does Title Insurance Actually Cover?

Every other insurance policy you own covers what might happen. Title insurance covers what already happened and nobody caught.

The search goes back through the recorded chain on your parcel. What it is looking for is a defect that survived: a forged or improperly executed deed, an heir nobody knew about, a mortgage that was paid but never released, a contractor's lien, an easement running through the back third of the lot that never made it onto a survey, a boundary that two neighboring deeds describe differently.

The premium is paid once, at closing. There is no renewal and no annual bill. The lender's policy covers the amount they lend, and by design its coverage declines as the loan is paid down and ends when the mortgage is satisfied. The owner's policy covers the owner, and it stays with you for as long as you hold title.

Do I Need an Owner's Policy If the Lender Already Has One?

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau answers this one directly: most lenders require a lender's title insurance policy, which protects the amount they lend, and you may want to buy an owner's policy separately. It is optional. It is also the only one of the two that protects you.

Look at the arithmetic on a median Columbus purchase. Buy at $350,000 with 20 percent down and the lender's policy insures $280,000. Your $70,000 of down payment is not insured by anything in that stack. If a claim surfaces two years in, the lender's carrier makes the lender whole and you are the one paying a lawyer.

In central Ohio this is usually a non-question, because the seller customarily buys the owner's policy for you. The thing worth doing is confirming it in the contract rather than assuming it. The CFPB also notes the total is usually lower when the same provider issues both policies, which is exactly what the simultaneous rate below does.

How Do You Pay Less Than the Filed Rate?

The premium is filed, so nobody is discounting it off the cuff. What moves the number is qualifying for a different rule inside the same manual. Four that come up constantly here:

1. The reissue rate. If the seller is insured under an owner's policy that has been outstanding less than ten years, the new policy is issued at 70 percent of the filed rate, up to the face amount of that prior policy. Coverage above the old face amount is charged at the regular rate. On a house last insured for $260,000 and selling at $350,000 today, applying the schedule's brackets to the excess drops the premium from $1,860 to roughly $1,410. The title company runs the exact figure, but only if somebody hands them the old policy.
2. The simultaneous issue rate. When the owner's and lender's policies are issued together on the same land, the loan policy is $150 for a standard loan policy or $175 for the expanded coverage residential version. Issued on its own, that same lender's policy on a $280,000 loan would run about $1,093 at the standalone loan rate of $4.00 per $1,000. Same coverage, roughly $940 apart, decided by sequencing.
3. The refinance rate. Refinancing with the same borrower on the same land, when the original loan policy is ten years old or less, is charged at 70 percent of the rate for the new loan policy on the unpaid balance of the old one.
4. Shop the fees, not the premium. The premium is filed and binding on OTIRB members. The search, exam, closing and settlement fees around it are not filed, and neither is the closing protection letter. The CFPB notes you can usually shop for your title provider separately from your mortgage. Ask for the itemized quote and compare the service lines, because that is where the actual spread lives.

What Else Hits Your Closing Statement in Franklin County?

Title insurance is the biggest of the title-side charges, not the only one. The county piece is small and precise.

Franklin County charges a conveyance fee of $3 per $1,000 of the sale price. The county's own calculator breaks it into a $1 per $1,000 fee set by the State of Ohio and a $2 per $1,000 fee set by the Franklin County Board of Commissioners, which last updated its portion in August of 2019. There is also a $0.50 transfer tax on the transfer, and a $3 minimum conveyance fee.

One detail that almost never gets mentioned: if the seller receives the homestead exemption on that property, the county waives its $2 portion and the total conveyance fee drops to $1 per $1,000. On a $350,000 sale that is $1,050 versus $350. The seller customarily pays this, so on an estate or a long-term owner sale it is worth checking the exemption status before you build the net sheet.

For what happens in the rest of that window, from acceptance to the table, see under contract to closing in Columbus.

What Should You Do Before You List or Close?

If you are selling, find the owner's policy from when you bought. Not the survey, not the deed, the policy. It is usually in the closing folder from your purchase, and if you bought in 2016 or later there is a good chance it puts the reissue rate in play. Hand it to the title company at the front of the transaction rather than the week of closing, because a credit nobody asked for in time is a credit nobody gets.

If you are buying, read the title lines in the purchase contract before you sign it, confirm the owner's policy is being issued and who is paying for it, and get both policies issued simultaneously.

If you are refinancing, dig out the loan policy from your purchase. Ten years or under and you are at 70 percent.

Prices in this market are specific to the street, and so is the premium, because the premium is a straight function of the price. For where value sits in one submarket, the Westerville submarket guide has the current numbers.

Send me your address and the year you bought, or comment or DM the word TITLE, and I will tell you two things: whether your old policy qualifies for the reissue rate, and what the owner's policy should cost at your price. If you want the price side of that first, start with a home value read. I will pull the parcel and the real comps and give you the number I would defend at a listing appointment.

Adam Geuy, Realtor - Blacktree Realty. ABR, PSA, SRS. Central Ohio. 937.239.2919.