CATIC Family of Companies: Our Journey to Creating a More Inclusive Workplace Culture

OUR VISION

In business for more than 50 years, CATIC® is dedicated to providing high-quality professional services to its policy-issuing attorneys, insured lenders and home-buyers, and other members of the real estate community.  CATIC is an underwriting member of the American Land Title Association (ALTA), the New England Land Title Association (NELTA) and the North American Bar-Related® Title Insurers. We offer standard ALTA policies and expanded protection policies for both residential and commercial properties, and annually insure mortgages issued by more than 1,300 lending institutions.

In June 2020, CATIC’s senior leadership team and Board of Directors made a genuine, long-term commitment to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in a more impactful manner across the organization and recognized the need to engage both internal and external constituents to help build better communities.  By doing so, the senior leadership team agreed to drive transformational changes that will help cultivate and sustain a truly inclusive workplace for women, people of color, and all marginalized groups, at CATIC moving forward.

OUR MISSION

We firmly believe that by thoughtfully employing a deliberate strategic effort over time, we will be able to successfully advance diversity, equity and inclusion in a meaningful way, while continuing to make a real difference in the various communities that we serve every day.  To that end, we’ve applied the following DE&I leadership framework to launch our journey to creating a more diverse and truly inclusive work environment for all employees:

Step 1: Lead with Purpose & Personal Conviction:  First and foremost, we acknowledged both internally and externally that a problem exists and made a genuine commitment to striving to be better every day.

Step 2: Build Genuine Connections:  We committed to thoroughly understanding the specific elements of the existing workplace culture that have contributed to the present state of inequality for underrepresented groups of employees.  This included developing a clear understanding of key demographic metrics and identifying areas of strength and opportunity across the organization. 

Step 3: Take Deliberate Strategic Actions:  We consistently developed and applied targeted strategic actions in an effort to eliminate prevailing inequalities that may exist throughout the organization, as necessary.  Additionally, we created a dynamic action plan to improve the current work environment for underrepresented groups of employees by identifying specific talent strategies that targeted each stage of the employee lifecycle (i.e., Recruitment; Development; Advancement; and Retention).

Step 4: Activate New Community Engagements:  Lastly, we actively pursued and embraced various opportunities to strategically partner with other companies and nonprofit organizations with similar interests to help address relevant social justice issues in our local communities.

OUR APPROACH

As a company that provides peace of mind to consumers by protecting their property rights, CATIC has also made a commitment to the communities we serve.  We have demonstrated this commitment by actively supporting our local communities and promoting corporate social justice through various actions, means, and organizations.  Our workplace culture is focused on collaboration, diversity, and inclusion.  In addition, we ensure that our employees are regularly connected to the local community by getting involved with charitable organizations through our Cheer Committee, community activities, and industry events.

Our Social Justice Reform Strategy can be summed up as follows:

• Continuing to cultivate an inclusive environment for all employees so that they thrive and prosper;

• Continuing to identify opportunities to advance women and people of color across our organization;

• Creating new pools of talent consisting of women and people of color across the title industry;

• Recruiting and developing early-in-career talent (e.g., bench strength, succession planning, etc.); and

• Championing fair and equal housing standards across our business footprint.

KEY STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

CATIC’s strategic objective for social justice is “Building Community Together” and the company has implemented several key organizational initiatives in support of these efforts, including:

• Social Justice Committee: The Board of Directors initiated a new Social Justice Committee to support and advocate for CATIC’s social justice initiatives, including promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion with all internal and external constituents.  The Committee will also provide strategic oversight and guidance to help ensure that all corporate social justice efforts are well coordinated.

• The CATIC Foundation:  The CATIC Foundation is a separate legal entity committed to providing support to not-for-profit organizations engaged in charitable works in their respective local communities and it continues to establish strategic partnerships with various community organizations committed to promoting equity and social justice initiatives.

• The Initiative: An employee-led committee currently focused on improving BIPOC homeownership across the country.   The core strategic objectives of the group include: (1) focusing on advancing diversity, equity and inclusion within CATIC; (2) building strategic partnerships with various community organizations committed to promoting fair and equal housing standards for underrepresented groups; and (3) actively engaging key stakeholders in the communities that we serve. 

• Women of Color in Title (WOCIT): In Fall 2021, several employees recognized a need to develop a safe space for all women of color in the title industry to regularly connect, advocate and learn from one another.  To address this issue, the group decided to pursue creating the first affinity group for all women of color in the Title industry. 

• CATIC Academy: Launched an online learning platform designed to provide both employees and agents with high-quality and leading-edge training programs from a wide variety of world-class training vendors.  In a deliberate effort to advance the DE&I conversation with key constituents, CATIC identified three comprehensive, on-demand training programs and offered each of these learning opportunities to all agents at no additional cost.

• International Women’s Day Events: In March 2022 and March 2023, the company hosted several activities on CATIC Academy to encourage genuine discussions regarding important topics relevant to women in the workplace amongst our employees and agents.  In addition to Erin Cabelus being a member of the event planning committee, Janet Wheeler was a featured panelist during the “Knowing Your Worth” webinar and Dinora Lopez moderated the “Women on the Move” webinar this year.

• Key Strategic Partnerships in the Community: CATIC firmly believes that it will take the collective commitment and effort of all of us to effectuate meaningful change over time.  Since starting this strategic effort in 2020, the company has had the opportunity to begin developing key strategic partnerships with several community organizations committed to making a difference, including:

  • MASSHousing

  • DesegregateCT

  • CREW Network

  • Liberty Bank and the City of Hartford (Good Neighbor Plus Program Hartford)

  • Habitat for Humanity (Coastal Fairfield and Hartford Chapters)

  • Cooperative Fund of New England

  • Lawyers Collaborative for Diversity (LCD)

  • ALTA Good Deeds Foundation

• Annual Inclusion Report: In September 2022, CATIC published its first Annual Inclusion Report (https://online.flippingbook.com/view/188735000/), which explains how the company initiated its DE&I journey across the organization in 2020 and the initial impact it has had on the company’s overall workplace culture since its inception. The report outlines various strategic initiatives that have been implemented as part of the company’s corporate social justice reform strategy.

CATIC is proud to continue its commitment to the CREW Network CRE Pledge for Action and firmly believes that we will make meaningful and sustainable progress towards achieving each of these strategic objectives over time.  For instance:

• Continue to successfully recruit, develop, advance and retain women in impactful roles across the organization, including various leadership positions;

• Engage a third-party vendor to conduct a comprehensive pay equity analysis by the end of the third quarter this year;

• Continue to promote amongst our staff and/or sponsor CREW Network events throughout the year (ex. Balance & Belonging-CREW CT);

• Continue to internally promote and cultivate the Women of Color in Title (WOCIT) affinity group and seek to expand its reach externally this year, as well;

• The Initiative team will be working to develop a new women-led mentoring program, which will be launched later this year; and

• Continue to encourage women across the organization to take on leadership roles in support of our various social justice initiatives, which help create new opportunities for increased exposure to senior management and the board of directors.

​By doing so, we will strive to continue doing our part to help build better communities by promoting fair and equitable treatment for all.