Kansas native now oversees support for title agents in eight states.
WFG National Title Insurance Company has promoted Patrick T. Malone, VP, to Regional Agency Manager for its Great Plains and Great Lakes Regions.
Malone, who joined WFG in December 2019, has been overseeing support for title agents in the five Great Plains states – Kansas (where he is based), Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota – since mid-2020. His responsibilities now also include agents in the Great Lakes states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.
WFG’s Clinton J. Yarborough, SVP, Central and GA/SC Agency Operations Manager, said that, “In the time Patrick has been in charge of the Great Plains area, he has shown an outstanding penchant for leadership and that made him a natural fit to manage additional Midwestern states. His enthusiasm towards sales, and his methodology have inspired all divisions of the WFG sales team.”
Malone’s decades-long love for the real estate industry has only intensified since joining WFG.
“What we do is amazing,” he said. “The great thing about WFG is that we have all these capabilities through our WFG BLOCKS program, and through the technologies and tools we offer to help agents be successful.”
“I’ve worked for direct operations and for big retail companies,” he continued, “and I love being on our side. We can talk to any agent, in any state, in towns with populations of 5,000 or five million, and they all have the same issues. It’s our job at WFG to help them figure out how to eliminate those issues.”
Malone is a 30-year veteran of the real estate industry, and a third-generation title industry professional. He learned the business in his family’s title company in Wichita, Kansas, including how to abstract, close and search transactions and write both residential and commercial transactions.
“My family had a title company in Wichita,” he recalled. “I was running the title department on the second floor and the closing office was on the first floor. I came down one day and my father handed me a file and asked, ‘Do you have your notary?’ I said, ‘Well, yeah.’ And he said, ‘Well, great, because there’s a closing in 15 minutes and the closer’s out sick today. Here’s your file.’ And I’d never closed in my life. I said, ‘Seriously? Are you kidding?’ He said, ‘Nope. This is how we do it in this business.’ So I went in and closed. The real estate agent was a friend of my dad’s, so he knew everything that was going on and prodded me. And it was the greatest experience of my life. I couldn’t wait to be a closer again; it was so much fun.”
Since 1999, Malone has worked for several national underwriters in Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas, building title insurance experience in multiple facets, including operations, title, closing, sales and marketing. As the operations manager for a Kansas City title company, he oversaw all aspects of the business.
He has given presentations on real estate topics such as short sales, RESPA issues, mortgage fraud, abstracting, management, business development, customer service development, economic growth and survey issues to State Title Insurance associations, real estate groups and community associations, and was a subject matter expert at the 2017 ALTA Springboard Conference.
In his spare time, Malone likes to spend time gardening with his wife and training in martial arts with his son.
WFG’s EVP of Agency Operations, Gene Rebadow, said, “Patrick has been a standout since day one with WFG. His unique blend of sales acumen and exemplary leadership skills make him exceptionally well-suited to management and we’re very grateful to have him on our team!”
“I am looking forward to helping people in all eight states see WFG not only as their underwriter, but as their business partner,” he said. “As Pat Stone says, ‘We’re here to help the agents grow and put more money back in their pockets.’”
Malone can be reached at PMalone@wfgnationaltitle.com.