| Brothers are family’s third generation in title insurance
It is a family affair at Truman Title Inc.
Brothers Todd and Drew Lewis co-own the title insurance agency in western and central Missouri. They represent the third generation of their family that has owned a title insurance business. Todd has served as the company’s president for the last 18 years, while younger brother Drew is vice president.
 Even though he did not set out to work in title insurance, Todd says he feels like the job has been a solid fit for him.
“I feel like I've got a mind that’s made for it,” he says. “It has taken care of my family, it’s allowed me to work with my family, and we have good customer relationships.”
Todd observes that Drew is likely the first member of the Lewis family that went to school with the intention of working in the title insurance industry. Drew says working in title has been “phenomenal” for him, his brother and their families.
“When I got into it I did not necessarily think that I would feel this rewarded after 25 years,” Drew says. “(We have) … been able to provide some blessings to our churches and to our communities that are beyond what I thought we’d be able to do.”
Todd and Drew Lewis spoke with The Title Report about how they got into the business, why they enjoy the work, how the industry has changed during the last three decades and whether a fourth generation in the Lewis family wants to some day take the leadership reins.
How it started
Drew said their grandfather, Jim Lewis, owned an RV manufacturing company that brought him to Sedalia, Mo., in the 1950s. He owned that company until selling it in the early 1970s.
“He was kind of in limbo and was looking for what to do next after selling that successful company,” Drew says.
A friend of the Lewis family told Jim about a title insurance company that was for sale. In 1973 Jim Lewis purchased Pettis County Abstract and Title Co. Todd says their family was living in Oklahoma at that time. When their grandfather later asked their father, Steve, to run Pettis once he retired, the family moved to Missouri.
Steve purchased Saline County Title Co. in Marshall, Mo., in 1994. Todd ran Saline County Title for his father and Drew began running the Sedalia office after graduating from the University of Missouri in 2000.
In 2009, the Lewis family bought Johnson County Title Co. in Warrensburg, Mo. Drew began supervising that office, while Todd continued running the Marshall office and added the Sedalia office to his duties.
“At that time, Todd and I bought my dad out, and we immediately merged the companies all into one holding company operating as three separate offices,” Drew explains.
In 2016, Drew and Todd then purchased Lafayette County Land Title Co., which has offices in Higginsville and Odessa.
“That’s when we became Truman Title and merged everything into one entity, and then we expanded into Warsaw in 2025,” Drew said.
They have 40-plus employees scattered among the six offices in Warrensburg, Sedalia, Higginsville, Marshall, Odessa and Warsaw.
Drew works in the Warrensburg office and Todd works in the Sedalia office, but they each visit the other offices from time to time, and they talk with another about business each day.
“Sometimes we email each other at 2:30 in the morning,” Todd says.
How Todd got started in title work
After graduating from Central Missouri State University (now the University of Central Missouri) with an accounting degree, Todd had worked in the accounting department in ERA Realty’s national headquarters for about five months when he got a call from his dad.
“(My dad) said, ‘I’m going to buy this office (Saline County Title Co. in Marshall, Mo.). I want to know if you’d like to come back and run it,’” Todd recounts. “That was the first time that I ever thought about being in the title business other than … working a little bit in the summer a couple times.”
Todd worked with his father in the Sedalia office for three months and then moved into the Saline County Title office in Marshall.
Steve Lewis bought Saline County Title from a family friend whose family owned the business for multiple generations dating back to the 1800s. The previous owner stayed with the firm for six months and taught Todd about the title insurance business.
“When I started in Marshall, if I was in that office by myself and someone came in to place an order, I had no idea what questions to ask, what to look for,” Todd says. “I watched the lady that owned it, I watched her do a few closings, and then I did every closing from that point forward myself. I’d never been in a closing before. … It was baptism by fire, but I absolutely appreciate the way that it worked because I learned a whole lot more real fast.”
While Todd oversaw the office in Marshall, Steve continued running the office in Sedalia.
“Other than when I went away for a vacation, (my father) pretty much stayed away from (the Marshall) office,” Todd says. “That’s my baby. That office has got a little special place in my heart because I took it from the ground floor and ran with it.”
Todd added that working in title insurance “was not on my radar” until his father asked him to run Saline County Title Co.
“If that wouldn’t have happened, I probably would not have ever been in the business, and possibly Drew may have never been in the business,” Todd says.
How Drew got started in the business
When Todd was in his early days of running the office in Marshall, the employee who handled courthouse research “just stopped coming to work,” Drew recounts.
Todd turned to his younger brother, who was 16 at the time, for a helping hand.
“I spent my summers driving to Marshall and working with my brother, who really taught me a lot about the research part of things, chains of title, those kind of things,” Drew says.
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“I wish that (our grandfather) could see what we’re able to accomplish. We do more orders in a month than we did in a year when he was doing it, and the way that we do it, the speed and the accuracy and the abilities that we have, would just blow him away.”
Todd Lewis
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Drew had worked with his father during the previous summer and he jokes that his job title was, “piling and filing and faxing and relaxing, because (with) my dad…you’d wait for him to give you something to do, and then you’d go and make a copy or something.”
In contrast, Drew says he boosted his knowledge level much more when he worked with his older brother the following summer.
“I do remember being pretty excited about going to Marshall … because I was going to learn what we were actually doing, and I was going to feel like I was making more of an impact,” he says.
Drew notes his favorite college professor played an important role in his decision to work in title insurance. When he was attending the University of Missouri, Drew had a career-focused conversation with his real estate professor, Dr. David West. Dr. West told him he had a good understanding of the real estate business and said he would arrange for Drew to interview for a position with a commercial real estate firm in St. Louis.
“I actually did go to that interview, and I think I would have absolutely loved working at that company, but I told him, ‘my family owns a title insurance company, and my plan is to go back home and run a title insurance company,’ and he goes, ‘I think that title insurance business is something pretty good. I think you ought to just really consider that,’” he explains.
Drew says Dr. West invested a lot in real estate and had a solid understanding of what the title insurance industry did.
“(It) was nice to get that encouragement from outside of my family,” he says.
What do they enjoy about working in title business?
Todd and Drew both enjoy working in title insurance but highlight different aspects of the business as their favorite.
As a history buff with a degree in accounting, Todd says he enjoys searching through property records and going through the auditing process to uncover issues with titles that need to be addressed.
“Regularly we have files where … you got a chain that’s broken, or you’re trying to find something that’s kind of a needle-in-a haystack type deal, and that’s always been something that I’ve kind of leaned toward,” Todd says.
Drew adds he’s “really proud” of how he and his brother have grown the company beyond what their grandfather anticipated it being. He is particularly interested in seeing how newer forms of technology will benefit the company.
“I get pretty excited when I see some of the tools the title companies can use to communicate to customers and to make the closing process just as efficient and as clean and as simple as we could possibly make it,” Drew says. “….I (also) enjoy watching and learning about some changes that artificial intelligence (AI) is making to our industry, and these are things I would have never really thought of, but when I see them, I really want to delve into that and see how that can make us better.”
While he has a keen interest in the technological advances happening in the business, Drew notes he enjoys one of the fundamental tasks of the job.
“I love when I get a file … where I have to map out a legal description to make sure that it is correct,” he says. “I just really enjoy mapping a property for whatever reason. It takes me back, I think, to when you first get into the business and you’re going through it.”
What is happening in the business today
With the company adding a new office and relocating its Warrensburg office in 2025, Drew says he and Todd postponed a software change to this spring.
“For the last year, I have been doing a lot of things outside of the title business that are more management-type of things, and then trying to get back to the title work,” Drew says.
Todd says his office handles a lot of in-house underwriting, addresses various problems and conducts higher-end examinations.
“Right now it is a lot of early mornings and weekends, and that’s kind of been that way forever,” Todd says. “If you like what you do, it makes it easier. It’s been busy, and with the change in software, it’s taken a toll. Of course, business would pick up immensely at the same time that we’re making that change, so the learning curve for the software has been pretty, pretty rapid, but it's been a lot of hours, too.”
Drew and Todd used to review each title commitment that left the Truman offices, but that has changed through a shift in the processes.
“We’re delegating a lot better than we used to, but at the same time we’re training a lot better than we used to,” Drew says. “We’ve got some employees that really understand our business very, very well, but presently our days are relatively long because of our technology advances and just trying to get through that transition.”
Technological enhancements boosts productivity
When he launched his title career in the mid-1990s, Todd says he remembers using a Compaq monochrome 12-inch laptop and learning DOS-based title software with a dot matrix printer. A closing package was delivered to the office and then was overnighted back to the necessary parties after the process was finalized. Nothing was wired or emailed to the parties involved in a property transaction.
Drew recalls he and Todd used to carry around banker’s boxes containing title policy documents. Drew would sometimes lug boxes home on a weekend and sign title policies while watching a golf tournament.
Today, the banker’s boxes have been replaced by a digital system that allows Drew and Todd to review all of the files whether they are working in the office or any remote location.
“Those things are fantastic,” Drew says. “To have our entire title plants automated, and the old books are scanned in, so you can see them … that’s amazing. I can see my entire chain from no matter where I am.”
The enhancements in technology have allowed the company to expand the geographic area of its prospective customers.
“Half of the deals that we deal with are realtors that aren’t with offices in our local markets, lenders (are) the same way,” Todd says. “It’s changed, but it also has benefited us because it has allowed us to be able to go into different markets and be able to do things that we would not have been able to do 20-25-30 years ago.”
Todd adds the technological advancements have allowed Truman Title to significantly increase its order volume over time.
“The things that we can do today are amazing. … I wish that (our grandfather) could see what we’re able to accomplish,” Todd shares. “We do more orders in a month than we did in a year when he was doing it, and the way that we do it, the speed and the accuracy and the abilities that we have, would just blow him away.”
With all of this technology, Drew adds it’s important to communicate with the agents, as well as sellers and buyers, “in a way that is simple and easy for them.”
“If you can provide for your seller or buyer the ability to take their phone and see information for their particular closing, I think it's a game-changer,” Drew says. “I think in today’s world it’s what people are used to.”
In the past, title companies would go through the real estate agent to communicate with the buyer and seller of a property. Now, Drew says, real estate agents often want the title agency to communicate directly with the buyer and seller.
What they enjoy outside of work
Drew and Todd both say they enjoy playing golf and volunteering with their churches.
 “I have graduated all the way to college and young adult ministry now. … I still go to the Wednesday night youth group stuff, but at different times in our lives, Todd and I have been the de facto youth pastors of our churches while they were going through transitions,” Drew says.
Todd adds, “I have been very involved with our youth group at church. I lead that, and that involves a lot of my extracurricular time. We also have a church school, and I serve on the board for that.”
Both have spent plenty of time watching their children’s sporting events, performances and other activities.
“The last 10 years of our lives has been chasing our kids around quite a bit, and watching our kids play sports or be in the band or do the different things that they do,” Drew says. “It’s just been awesome.”
Speaking of children, Todd and Drew note there is the possibility that title insurance will continue into a fourth generation of their family. Todd’s daughter, Faith, and Drew’s daughter, Elise, are two months apart in age, and are in college working toward business degrees. Todd notes Faith is “now working here part time while she’s at school, and wants to do this.”
Drew adds Elise has begun showing some interest in working in the title insurance field.
“There’s been more hints, more little comments about maybe wanting to live in a small town, and some things like that,” Drew shares. “We shall see. We have really pushed to not pressure our girls into it at all, and to let them decide for themselves.”
Drew also praised his wife and Todd’s wife for the support they’ve provided as the brothers have built their careers.
“Our wives both work very, very hard, they’re both very dedicated to their crafts, but they’re also very supportive of ours, and that has really helped in making our business because both of (them) are very supportive and understanding when we’re sending each other emails at 2:30 in the morning,” Drew says.
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