MIG Tests Top Verification Providers and Improves Conversion by 100% With Truv

J.R. Huber, EVP Sales & Production, MIG

“We went from 25% conversion to 50%. Right now, in the VOE space, that’s a really good percentage.”

Problem

Over the past few years, the cost of verifying income and employment through legacy solutions began multiplying. In addition, poor data quality from other providers continued trending upward, leading to an uptick in borrower friction across income, employment, and asset verifications. High costs and underperforming verification vendors stood in the way of Mortgage Investors Group (MIG) providing borrowers with a faster, easier, and more affordable home loan experience.

Truv Solution

Verification of Income & Employment, Verification of Assets, Truv Dashboard.

About

MIG is a leading provider of single-family residential mortgages in the Southeast with more than 400 employees and 24 branch locations. From humble beginnings in 1989, MIG has since grown, expanding into new markets and closing more than $20 billion in loans.

The Story

As a lender who firmly believes in the power that technology is bringing to the lending space, MIG decided to change the trajectory of their lending experience with innovation. In the pursuit of driving impactful changes for the company at large, their loan officers, and borrowers, MIG launched an evaluation of multiple third-party verification providers at once to fairly assess product performance. Through a volunteer pilot group of loan officers, vendor success was measured by four critical factors: cost savings, ease of use, data quality, and conversion.

MIG took a gradual, unbiased approach to rolling out Truv and competing vendors, allowing loan officers to organically provide feedback on the contenders. The team quickly noticed that loan officers were reporting on the accuracy and reliability of Truv data compared to other vendors.

J.R. Huber, EVP Sales & Production, MIG

“In the team demo, our rep explained how to solve for problems and troubleshoot, empowering LOs to become trusted advisors in the borrower experience.”

Following trainings, ongoing support, and best practices from the Truv team, MIG loan officers took the lead and led borrowers through seamless verification processes. With expanded feature functionality, including a borrower’s ability to reset their login credentials if forgotten or unknown, borrowers had an easy experience connecting to their payroll providers within minutes.

As the success with Truv from both borrower and loan officer perspectives was shared across the organization, adoption steadily grew.

J.R. Huber, EVP Sales & Production, MIG

“Truv provided us a list of payroll providers that they work with so we knew going in [to the transaction] if it’s something we wanted to try.”

While ease of use end-to-end was a top priority throughout MIG’s vendor selection process, reliable data ranked higher. The additional data provided by Truv compared to other solutions, such as commission details, overtime, and employment start dates, became increasingly valuable for MIG’s operations.

With strategy remaining top of mind, prior to sending a verification order to a borrower within Truv Dashboard, MIG loan officers leverage Truv’s coverage tool to search for a borrower’s employer within the industry-leading list of mappings to payroll providers. This provides insight into the likelihood that a borrower will successfully connect.

As Truv gained traction, MIG tracked an average savings of $100-150 per loan and accelerated turn times by reducing days to verify. Today, MIG has positioned Truv’s income and employment verification at the top of the waterfall for the majority of loan files. With change management and the right use of technology, since implementation, MIG’s conversion rate has improved by 100% with Truv.

J.R. Huber, EVP Sales & Production, MIG

“We’ve got enough adoption and enough confidence in Truv [VOIE] that we are about to expand into the asset piece of it.”

Despite the unknowns of the mortgage market, MIG is certain about their mission to leverage data-driven technology advancements in the future.  

When asked what he’d say to a lender on the fence about trying out a consumer-permissioned verification solution, J.R. said, “It’s really about partnering with somebody in the future you can trust, is going to save you money, protect your company, and make the customer experience better. And Truv checks all those boxes.”