BILL NUMBER: AB 704	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Cooley

                        FEBRUARY 25, 2015

   An act to add Section 12340.12 to the Insurance Code, relating to
insurance.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 704, as introduced, Cooley. Insurance.
   Existing law provides for the regulation of title insurers and
underwritten title companies by the Insurance Commissioner. Existing
law, the Escrow Law, defines escrow agents and regulates their
activities. Existing law requires that prior to the disbursement by
an underwritten title company from any escrow account each
underwritten agreement shall contain certain written procedures
reasonably calculated to prevent the misappropriation, disappearance,
or wrongful use of funds. Existing law defines escrow as a
transaction in which one person, for the purpose of effecting a sale
or transfer to another, delivers a thing of value to a 3rd person to
be held by that person until the happening of a specified event or
the performance of a prescribed condition, when it is then to be
delivered.
   This bill would define "escrow" as it relates to transactions
involving an insurer, underwritten title company, or controlled
escrow company as a transaction in which one person, for the purpose
of effecting a sale or transfer to another, delivers a thing of value
to a 3rd person to be held by that person until the happening of a
specified event or the performance of a prescribed condition, when it
is then to be delivered.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  Section 12340.12 is added to the Insurance Code, to
read:
   12340.12.  "Escrow" means any transaction in which an insurer,
underwritten title company, or controlled escrow company, for the
purposes of effecting the sale, transfer, encumbering, or leasing of
real or personal property, regardless of the location of the real or
personal property, delivers any written instrument, money, evidence
of title to real or personal property, or other thing of value to a
third person to be held by that third person until the happening of a
specified event or the performance of a prescribed condition, when
it is then to be delivered by that third person to a grantee,
grantor, promisee, promisor, obligee, obligor, or any agent or
employee of any of the latter.