BELFOR Property Restoration complaints

It is always a difficult situation when a property does not have adequate insurance coverage to replace all damaged materials with a like kind product. In this situation, a $200k policy limit was in place to cover both the mitigation (cleanup & drying) and restoration (repairs) of the property. With the basement area Mr. Clifton is referencing included, there is almost 1800 SF of finished space. At the time of the initial contract, we did not know that the balance for the previous contractors mitigation would total $38,000. The price of this mitigation, and its failure to salvage any significant portion of the materials that were damaged, was the biggest factor in limiting what we able to do for Mr. Clifton during the repair phase. We have spent approximately $145,000 rebuilding the property. We were able to negotiate on his behalf to get some additional coverage out of the policy, bringing the total over the max coverage limit by $10,717.19. After deduction of the mitigation from the claim, there was approximately $171,500 available for the reconstruction project. I am sorry to hear that our customer has the impression that money is all important to us, as we feel we have lessend our profit expectations from this project considerably to attempt to restore his home to a livable state- despite the relative lack of unspent funds available for rebuilding 1800SF of living area. The time issue was unfortunate, but there were serious complications and delays from the lack of responsiveness from American National insurance. As late as December of 2023 we could still not get a defined answer of what the total payout would be for Mr. Clifton. They had received the updated scope of repairs from us once the remaining ruined materials had been removed from the "mitifated" structure by BELFOR by January 2023. Dozens of attempts to contact and clarify the matter with American National were met with silence and weeks of delays from their end during the interim period. We did have a significant production issue with the window order that further delayed the project in the spring of 2023. We do apologize for the length the project has continued, and sympathize with Mr. Clifton. Despite the lack of draw funds available, we pushed through the final stages of the 1st floor remodel in order to get the insured back into his home before his living expense coverage expired. We also made every effort to ensure that Mr. Clifton understood the limitations of his coverage. On 12-26-23, he signed a contract outlining $180,309.68 worth of selected repairs from the overall scope of $258,000 that was sent to American National. It was agreed he would pay the amount he received from insurance as long as it was less than the amount of repairs that were completed (which is the case). We agreed in return to not seek compensation from him for completed repairs in excess of his insurance payment. We do sympathize with his situation, but we should not be expected to perform $175,000 worrth of repairs without realizing any profit, which would be the result of what Mr. Clifton is proposing as a solution.

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