Mortgage with Escrow (PITI) or without (PI only)?

[David Stone]

Quick question:  Do you prefer to pay taxes and insurance yourself or through an escrow account? (...and why?)

We have all of our properties set up with mortgages and escrow accounts.  Lately, we have had issues.  Between refinances and loans being sold off, the lien holder information is constantly changing.  We have had payments rejected by insurance because they were not given authorization to accept payment from the new lien holder.  We have had account numbers confused between our multiple properties leading to insurance policies being cancelled for non-payment and having to be reinstated.  With a recent change in insurance, we were told we would get a refund from one company, asked to pay the next, but will still be paying escrow monthly which means we will be paying double essentially this year for insurance on one property.

I am leaning toward paying insurance and taxes myself.  Although some lenders/loan types will not allow no escrow, we have conventional and all of our properties have at least 20% equity, but I still need to talk to the mortgage companies to see if they will let me cancel the escrow account and pay it on my own.

We were asked with many of our loans if we would like to set up an escrow account to pay taxes and insurance or not, and we always opted to do so because it felt easier.  But after all the hassle lately, we are thinking it would be better to pay it ourselves.  My question is, given the choice, would you prefer to have an escrow account or pay tax/insurance yourself and any solid reasons why one is better than the other?