Insurance claim struggle

[Lior Golan]

Hello everyone,

I bought a property in Cleveland area in February this year. In the beginning it was for BRRRR but as it was my first investment property, I had made some mistakes on the way which caused to understate also that I can't refinance with good terms right now and also spent more money that I initiated thought...

As part of my rehab there, I also finished the basement with additional bedroom and bathroom.

On of the mistakes was that i accepted my contractor to do an high floor in the bathroom to reduce cost on moving pipes under the concrete basement floor.

In July the pipes were burst in the basement and flooded all of it (another mistake that I didn’t replace the old pipes). After replacing the pipes and trying to dry the entire basement, mold started to appear there.

When called to one of mold companies, they said that I can use the insurance to cover the expenses for the mold remediation, so I did contacted the insurance...

They came and saw everything and gave me an estimate of 13K to try and repair the damage. But when consulting with some mold companies they adviced that I need to demo the entire basement mainly also the high basement bathroom because there is framing under it which could have a lot of mold. That means that I need to demo and finish again the basement with bedroom and bathroom (probably save some pieces like the bath...).

I brought few contractors and they gave me an estimate ranging 15-30 for finishing the basement after the remediation. I had a good feeling with the one that gave me 25k for finishing it and with a mold company the estimate 4K for demo and mold remediation the entire basement - something like 30k.

Tried to bring these estimates to the insurance and they brought another coordinator to see the damage and told me that u have another leak from the bathroom upstairs hence cannot find me the full amount. Of course this is a lie, I brought a waterproofing company to give me a certificate that there is no such a Leak.

Sent them that and they got softer abs says that they will out the scope of work to a rehab calculator software and then will give me that estimate. The estimate came with JUST 15k!! Just 2K more that the first offer from them.

I am now don’t know what to do... they offered me to get that money and maybe they could bring me more on the way, but I don’t believe them!

What would you do instead of me?

Thank you for the reading!