How to negotiate fee with contractor after emergency work is done?

[Kimberly T.]

We recently had a major sewer line leak that caused some interior water damage to 2 units in a rental we own in AZ. We had a plumber come out first, not knowing what was causing the water leak, and he discovered there was water sitting in our ceiling under the upstairs toilets, so he recommended a dry-out company to come and remove the sitting water and start drying out the walls and ceilings asap. The dry-out company recommended we file an insurance claim based on the extent of the damage (they said their work would be several thousand dollars, but that was just an over-the-phone guess, not in writing, and was based on the assumption it would be covered by insurance). We went ahead and filed a claim. The dry-out company has a sister company that does abatement, so we had that company come out over the next few days and started removing some of the ruined stuff (gyp board, cabinets, etc.).

During this abatement time, we found out our insurance claim was denied (turns out that's an added coverage item, not something that is covered with basic insurance). We came to an agreement on price with the abatement company to do the work, since we'd be paying out of pocket.

We haven't heard anything from the dry-out company since they've done their work (we'd given them our insurance claim number, but they were already gone and done with their work when our claim got denied). We initially thought their work was part of what we paid the abatement company for, but upon reviewing the abatement invoice, we believe we still need to pay the dry-out company. We don't want them to put a lien on our property or think that we're trying to get out of paying them, but we also don't know how to go about negotiating a price for the work they did, at this point. Based on some research we did, it sounds like people typically pay around $1,200 or so for that kind of work. Since we never did anything in writing (normally we ALWAYS do everything in writing, but this was an emergency), how can we come to a reasonable agreement on this? They could conceivably demand thousands from us, and we wouldn't know how to dispute it.