The Foundation of Real Estate Appraisers (FREA) was founded in 1991 to fill a gap in the market for appraiser continuing education. At the time, obtaining education was expensive and difficult. It involved earning a designation that required thousands of dollars in classes from an association, and years of subservient service to someone who was already designated. FREA began offering continuing education classes in the San Diego area and within a few months had more than 150 instructors teaching classes all over the country. Soon FREA began to see another need in the market, this time for low cost Errors and Omissions Insurance. E&O premiums were outrageously high for appraisers and there were only a handful of insurance carriers writing policies. FREA saw an opportunity to provide E&O at much lower rates than the other carriers and began their E&O insurance program. In 1996 FREA created a home inspection division, offering the same benefits to home inspectors as they had been offering to appraisers. including low cost E&O insurance. Due to the large numbers of members, FREA has substantial buying power with insurance companies, helping to keep the program strong while other insurance providers have fallen by the wayside.Today, with over 10,000 members, FREA is the largest professional organization for appraisers and home inspectors in the country. FREA provides E&O insurance, education and other benefits to its members. Its sister company, NDCdata.com, provides state of the art, low-cost online data to more than 2500 appraisers in California. FREA also publishes the Communicator magazine. ("The Voice of our Nation's Appraisers & Home Inspectors") which has a quarterly circulation of over 125,000 readers.