As we continue our efforts to strengthen the CRFS organization, we continue making organizational changes.

• Sean Snook has elected to move from Operations to Tech & Innovation. He will serve as CRFS’s process change engineer, reporting to our CIO, Bill Taylor.
• Mariela Pantaleo will lead the entirety of CRFS Operations, continuing to report directly to Jodi Gaines.
• Glezy Morong has assumed the role of manager, leading GSE and MI claims. Glezy’s extensive experience in claims as well as her pivotal prior role within CRFS’s Innovation area.
• Christine Mann has elected to move from the GSE and MI Claims manager position to a team member role.

We are very appreciative of Sean and Christine’s many years of contributions to CRFS’s success, and we and look forward to the positive results they will continue to provide. We are also very appreciative of Mariela and Glezy having taken on additional responsibilities within CRFS and are confident they will lead CRFS to great new successes.

Notice of FHA Claims Payment Slowdown

We hope this message finds you well. We are writing to inform you of a recent development regarding the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) claim processing and payment delays on FHA submitted claims.

Over the past week, we have observed a slowdown in HUD’s timeframe for processing and paying FHA claims. This delay appears to be affecting a significant number of claims, and we wanted to make you aware of the situation so that you can respond to this development accordingly.

What This Means for You:

• If you have submitted FHA claims recently, you may experience longer-than-usual processing times.
• Payments that would typically be issued within 2-3 days may be delayed.
• Claims with error codes which HUD is not working are at risk of being deleted.
• If you typically cancel your inspections and insurance at the time of conveyance for your Part A conveyance claims, you may want to consider keeping those services active until you have confirmed that HUD has paid the claim; it isn’t until HUD pays the claim that HUD has accepted the property into their inventory, relieving the servicer of responsibility for protecting the property.

What CRFS is Doing:

• We are closely monitoring the situation and are attempting to contact HUD to obtain updates on any changes or resolutions to the current delays.
• Monitoring claim payments, as usual, with an eye toward assessing any changes in HUD’s processing, positive or negative.

Our team is committed to ensuring that all claims are processed as efficiently as possible on our end.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. And we will keep you informed as any new information is known to us.

Thank you for your understanding and continued partnership.

Best regards,

Sean Snook
Operations Senior Vice President / Assurance
585-831-3858

Foreclosure activity is expected to rise. If you’re a servicer, it’s time to take action. Are you prepared to meet HUD’s foreclosure timelines and avoid potential losses? If not, CRFS has the solution you need.

CRFS’ Default Timeline Manager (DTM) is a smart platform that integrates automation with human expertise to keep your default inventory on track. From default day 60, DTM provides real-time analytics and comprehensive reporting at both the FHA loan and portfolio levels, mitigating avoidable delays and reducing financial exposure and compliance risk.

Don’t let your default portfolio fall behind the curve. Stay ahead of the game with Default Timeline Manager. Contact our CEO, Jodi Gaines at [email protected] to learn more about how CRFS and DTM we can help your team today.

Jodi Gaines, CRFS co-founder, returns to CRFS in February 2024 as CEO and owner. Mowers, former CEO, resumes the role of CFO. Sean Snook, remains in the role as president. 

Gaines is excited to reengage with the CRFS employees and clients. “I’m looking forward to providing the level of service our CRFS clients expect and deserve”, said Gaines, “and I’m confident in our ability to meet and exceed their expectations”.  

Gaines started CRFS at her kitchen table in 2002 and grew the company to over 700 employees. In 2015, High Street Capital acquired CRFS and exited in 2024 upon Gaines’ return.  

Please direct any questions to Jodi Gaines@ [email protected].

                     CRFS REAL WORLD CASE STUDY 2022-04                     MI CLAIMS PROJECT

• Client:           Non-bank mortgage servicer
• Challenge:    As year-end approached, our client was faced with a significant population of aged MI claims that were past the technical due date and needed to be submitted to multiple MI carriers for review and disposition. The carriers were pressing our client to submit the claims ASAP or risk losing the opportunity to secure any recoveries. Due to the specific claim filing requirements the individual MI carriers maintain, client leadership was concerned it lacked the in-house resources necessary to complete the project in the timeframe required. The client had worked with CRFS in the past and re-engaged with us to develop a solution to a problem with meaningful financial implications.
• Solution:       CRFS and the client were able to finalize an agreement quickly, and immediately went to work on the technical and operational elements of the partnership including access to the various MI carrier sites. Working closely with the client’s technology and LOB leadership, we were able to compress the typical implementation window from an average of roughly 60 days to less than 45 days. Once we’d received the first set of referrals, CRFS was able to onboard, process, QC and successfully submit the first claim package in five business days.  As the project continued and volumes increased, the client provided comprehensive training on key internal systems which allowed the CRFS team to work the claims quicker. CRFS and the client also implemented an effective process to address a growing number of missing critical documents, which further accelerated the claim review and submission process.
• Value Add:    With early and ongoing support from the client, CRFS was able to expedite the administrative and operational elements of the new client onboarding to facilitate a much quicker-than-usual referral of an aged population of MI claims. Within 45 days of going live with the project, CRFS had ingested nearly 150 claims across multiple MI carriers and is on target to submit the entire population within 90 days of referral. From an ROI perspective, the submitted claims are reliably clearing the carrier review process and are generating recoveries that greatly exceed the filing costs.  The success of this project has led the client to expand the relationship with CRFS to include additional claim types.

Grateful to you for the past 20 years, and ready for the next 20

CRFS’ 20^th anniversary celebration continues throughout December and we couldn’t be more thankful for our dedicated staff and the industry partnerships we have developed.

Trusted partnerships with dozens of industry leaders

20 years as the established leader of post-default claims management comes in no small part from the relationships built with our clients and strategic partners – their success is our success.  Our passion to support and grow relationships with new and long-standing clients alike fosters mutual long term success. We’re grateful for the opportunity to work with industry-leading clients and partners, and we appreciate and celebrate the trust they place in our processes and people.

Dedication to – and from – our employees

CRFS remains committed to our most valuable resource—our employees, and many of them have demonstrated an equal level of dedication that can be measured not in years but decades.

• 35 employees are celebrating 10 or more years of service in 2022, many of whom have grown their careers while at CRFS
• The majority (63%) of our Executive Team was promoted from within, with an average tenure of 7 years, but our senior and executive management tenure spans many decades.

Looking back, and moving forward

It is impossible not to look back and be grateful for the past 20 years of industry success, but CRFS never stops moving forward.  Enthusiasm, commitment, and passion for our work drives continuous improvement and innovation, including:

• A nationwide remote staffing model, expanding our recruiting pool and ensuring access to the best talent
• Rapid response to the changing claims landscape, including FHA Emergency Loss Mitigation claim, VA Partial claim, and more changes in store in the post-pandemic environment
• Significant and ongoing technology investments in our claim submission, and workflow automation platforms, pairing our experienced staff with state of the art technology

Client partnership and collaboration coupled with a proven track record of success make CRFS the continued leader in post-default claims management outsource and consulting solutions. Click here for more details on how CRFS continues to Maximize Your Financial Results While Minimizing Risk. If you have questions, please contact us.

Best wishes for much success in 2023!

CRFS REAL WORLD CASE STUDY 2022-03

VA PARTIAL CLAIMS

• Client:            Traditional bank mortgage servicer
• Challenge:     The VA Partial Claim Payment (VAPCP) is a temporary program that is intended to assist Veteran borrowers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to resume making their regular (pre-COVID) mortgage payments after exiting forbearance. The VAPCP program was introduced by the VA in July 2021, and unless extended the program is scheduled to expire in October, 2022.  In Q2 2022 the client (who was new to CRFS in 2022) approached CRFS with a significant backlog of VA Partial claims, which was not a claim type that CRFS had previously filed for the client.  Client leadership, faced with the prospect of working down significant volume in a claim type that was new to them, was not confident it had adequate available internal resources or expertise to deliver on what had become a time sensitive project due to the impending program deadline. As part of their transition to CRFS, the client engaged company leadership to assist with this critical project.
• Solution:        Within 30 days of the initial onboarding of the client, CRFS was able to deploy a team experienced with VA Partial claims to support the project and begin receiving the claim population. As additional clients began soliciting support from CRFS for this claim type and overall volumes escalated, the company’s Innovation Office and IT Team in partnership with a third-party technology vendor finalized and rolled-out an enhanced Claims Management platform that included functionality for the VA Partial claim.  This new platform introduced significant operational efficiencies including streamlined and standardized data entry, bulk upload of individual claims to the Valeri system, and the potential to implement quality control audits in bulk which will greatly expedite the QC process.  Additionally, CRFS’ access to a national footprint of experienced remote employment candidates allowed it to quickly expand its processing and QC operations to handle the claims management needs of multiple VA Partial claim clients.
• Value Add:     The CRFS Client Relations Team was able to expedite the initial onboarding of this new client to facilitate a much quicker-than-usual referral of their VA Partial claim population. Operations leadership then quickly allocated experienced VA claim analysts to accommodate the client’s need to rapidly reduce their backlog and maximize recoveries in advance of looming VA deadlines.  Within the first two months of the project CRFS had submitted or was actively working over 200 VA Partial claims for the client with an average recovery per claim several times higher than the cost, with total production capacity currently at 400 claims per month.

To download a printable PDF version of this and previous CRFS case studies, visit our complete resource library here.

Claims Recovery Financial Services, LLC Executive Team members are having a great time in Dallas for Evolve: The 2022 Five Star Conference and Expo, which concludes tomorrow, Tuesday, September 20th.  If you are also attending, be sure to connect with Jeffrey Clark and Ryan Lasal, MSL and say hello!

https://www.fivestarconference.com/fsc2022/

CRFS REAL WORLD CASE STUDY 2022-02
FNMA RPL CLAIM PROJECT

• Client:              Large non-bank mortgage servicer
• Challenge:      On a recurring basis FNMA, under the direction of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), will execute Re Performing Loan (RPL) sales with approved FNMA servicers to reduce the number of delinquent loans held in its inventory. The sales not only positively impact FNMA’s balance sheet but equally importantly help drive more favorable outcomes for borrowers and local communities. Starting in Q4 2021 our client engaged CRFS to manage approximately 40,000 claims that would need to be filed as a result of its participation in multiple RPL sales during 2021.
• Solution:          Leveraging its national recruiting footprint CRFS added experienced production and Quality Control staff to the team overseeing the FNMA RPL Claims workflow and delivered customized training to equip the new hires with the skills and knowledge to do the work. This expanded workforce coupled with meaningful technology enhancements to its Claims Management System (CMS) increased CRFS’ claims submission output threefold to ensure it would meet the agreed upon project deadlines.
• Value Add:        CRFS was able to quickly deploy a high performing team to meet the ongoing claims management needs of its client in support of completed and future RPL sales. Additionally, the staffing and operational solution put in place by CRFS controlled costs while maximizing the financial opportunity for the client. The per unit cost to the client is a fraction of the average recovery per claim, ensuring the engagement continues to deliver a positive ROI.

To download a printable PDF version of this and previous CRFS case studies, visit our complete resource library here.