Title Insurance vs Home Insurance: What Each One Actually Covers

Buyer Advice Dave Dubbin August 17, 2026

They are not alternatives. You need both, and they protect completely different things. Title insurance protects your legal ownership of the property: that you actually own it, that nobody else has a claim on it, that the survey is right and the previous owner did not leave an unpermitted deck behind. Home insurance protects the physical building and the things inside it, plus your liability if someone gets hurt there. One is a single premium paid once at closing. The other is a monthly or annual bill for as long as you own the place.

Buying this year and want the closing costs mapped out before you write an offer? Get in touch and we will walk you through the whole number, not just the down payment.

Signing property documents

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The side by side

	Title insurance	Home insurance
What it protects	Your legal ownership and right to the property	The physical structure, your contents, your liability
When you pay	Once, at closing	Monthly or annually, forever
How long it lasts	As long as you own the property	Only while the policy is in force
Who requires it	Most lenders require a lender policy; the owner policy is your choice	Every lender requires it before funding
Typical Ontario cost	Roughly $200 to $1,000 plus, scaled to price. Get an exact quote from the insurer's calculator	Varies widely by building, coverage and claims history
Covers a fire	No	Yes
Covers a forged deed or title fraud	Yes	No
Covers a stolen bike from the locker	No	Usually yes, subject to limits
Covers an unpermitted addition the seller built	Often yes, depending on policy	No

Cost ranges reflect what Ontario insurers publish through their own premium calculators, checked August 2026. There is no fixed provincial rate schedule, so treat these as a range and pull a real quote.

What title insurance actually pays out on

The claims people picture are the dramatic ones. Someone forges a transfer and sells your house out from under you. That happens, and the policy covers it, and Ontario has seen enough of it in the last few years that the coverage earns its keep on that alone.

The common claims are duller. A previous owner finished a basement without a permit and the city comes calling. A fence sits eighteen inches over the line and the neighbour finally objects. There is an old lien registered that nobody caught. A survey shows the garage encroaching on the easement. These are the ones that quietly cost people five figures, and they are the reason your lawyer will push the owner policy even when the lender only asked for theirs.

The lender policy is not your policy

This is the part buyers miss. If you take only what the lender requires, the coverage protects the lender's interest, not yours. If a title problem surfaces, the insurer makes the bank whole and you are on your own. The owner policy is the one that covers you, and adding it when the lender policy is already being issued usually costs a modest amount on top. Ask your lawyer for the combined number rather than assuming.

If you are working through the rest of the closing, start here:

Where it sits in your closing budget

Here is a worked example on a condo priced at the July 2026 GTA condo apartment average of $636,323, reported by TRREB. Every figure below is an estimate for illustration, and your lawyer's quote is the one that counts.

Closing item	Estimated cost	Note
Ontario land transfer tax	About $9,201	Before any first time buyer rebate
Toronto municipal land transfer tax	About $9,201	Toronto charges its own on top
Legal fees	$1,500 to $2,500	Plus disbursements
Title insurance, owner and lender	Roughly $400 to $800	One time, quote it properly
Status certificate (condo)	Up to $100	Capped by the Condominium Act
Home insurance, first year	Varies	Must be in place before funding

Land transfer tax figures calculated from Ontario and City of Toronto rate brackets on a $636,323 purchase price, August 2026. First time buyers may qualify for rebates that reduce both.

Notice the shape of that list. Title insurance is one of the smallest lines on the page and one of the only ones that buys you protection rather than paying a tax or a fee. In insurance terms, it is a low premium against a low probability, high severity event, which is the exact situation insurance is good at. You are unlikely to claim. If you do, the number is large.

The counterpoint

Some buyers, especially on a new build from a reputable builder with a clean title history and a fresh survey, look at the owner policy and decide the risk is close to zero. That is a defensible read on a brand new unit in a brand new corporation. The trouble is that title fraud does not care how new your building is, and the resale market is where most of the awkward history lives. On anything with a past, we think the owner policy is easy money. What would change our view is a meaningful drop in Ontario fraud and encroachment claims, and that is not the direction things have moved.

One more thing worth saying plainly. Title insurance is not a substitute for a lawyer doing a proper search. It is a backstop for what the search cannot find. Buy both.