Insurance is in the business of making money; protecting your pocketbook is a by-product, so they will do what they can to prevent a big payoff.

I actually don't have a beef with your methodology.

You may want to investigate just beefing up your insurance. 

From what you've seen, do you believe 30-40k is enough cash to take on a BRRRR in these parts of Columbus, or do I need to beef up my capital significantly? 

He had some kind of beef with the SEC over some kind of investment deal or something like that, but he is a legit real estate guru and his methods align with how I got started, minus a rich father in law to help finance things.

Eventually, I left my SF rentals in my name and beefed-up insurance, including an umbrella. 

And third, you can make sure your lease's guest policy and non-smoking clauses are beefed up and made extremely clear to the tenants.Lastly, you probably inspected the property at least once or twice before closing, so you would have likely been able to determine if there was any significant smoke damage or cigarette smell inside.  

Once you start adding up all these little bits, its starts adding up to a lot, and when you start compounding that over a handful of years, and using the proceeds to purchase additional properties, it can quickly snowball into generational wealth.Appreciation and equity paydown are by far and away how the majority of people get wealthy in real estate, the cashflow is a byproduct that tends to come later once you have had several years worth of rent increases.

The second mistake is that you must beef up that emergency fund for your investments.

My beef with the people who teach this are(1) they imply this is somehow related to real estate investing; it is not(2) they imply you can be successful with only the knowledge they teach; this is not true, you need managerial and business skills and knowledge to a degree way beyond the scope of the “training” they provide.(3) they imply you can successfully do this on a part time basis; it’s actually a full time business demanding all of your attention(4) they imply competition is limited; competition is actually fierce, except for the deals on which there is no profit.Additionally, this industry is state regulated, by the state in which the property is located.