Dry Air Restoration

"Greetings [Member Name Removed], Thanks for your patience on this response. As we described to you - we bill differently in order to help customers who are not insured pay for our services. The pricing software we use (Xactimate) decides all of the prices for each and every line item. This software is used by every major restoration company as well as every insurance company. It is an industry standard. Every region/area has their own price list. We simply input the region you are located in and it adjusts the prices accordingly. We document all of our work and every line item is justified. This is then sent to the insurance and when we come to an agreement the check gets issued to you and it is up to you to send it to us. The problem you described seems to be backwards. The real estimate is the one the insurance received. It details every single thing performed on the job (emergency service call, equipment rentals, equipment set-up and take down, spraying disinfectant, water extraction, etc). The estimate we offered you was cheaper because we were giving you a discount so you could afford the services. We are in the business of helping people through their crisis -- not adding onto it. If a customer does not have insurance we want to help them and are more than willing to work with them if they're willing to work with us. While we can't do everything for free we can instruct the customers on what they can do to lower the bill (so we do not have to pay employees to do it). We also are able to offer discounts on things such as equipment rentals. I am very sorry to see the review you gave us but it is understandable that without explanation what you experienced may have come off as 'fishy' for lack of a better word. You stated: "Regardless if insurance covers the clean-up and repair, the work performed is the same." You are correct. However, the insurance is liable to pay for the work performed at the full price. This price is set by Xactimate and is used by every major contractor and insurance company. If your estimate does not match up with the insurances estimate they will not pay out what you requested. The only way for the insurance to pay-out is if we use the estimating software they use and our estimate/invoice matches theirs. If it doesn't we have to justify the price difference and come to an agreement. If they check gets sent out it means both parties have come to an agreement on the work done and the price that work is worth. While it may seem like the bill 'jumped' from $1,900 to $3600 the reality is we offered a lower price ($1900) from the actual price the insurance is liable to pay for the work performed ($3600). These price guides are not set by us, but by Xactware (the makers of Xactimate; the industry standard estimating software). So to re-cap; The price billed to the insurance was what the work was supposed to be billed as. Unfortunately, customers sometimes believe they are covered but they are not. We do not want to leave customers in the dust when this happens because, again, we are in the business of helping people -- not adding to their problems. In the case that this happens we do whatever we can to give the customer a more affordable bill because we know it's coming 'out-of-pocket'. We understand very few people are prepared to pay for a big bill that a disaster like water damage can run. We hope you can see now that we did not 'jump' the price up but actually offered you a fair and discounted price if you were not covered but billed the 'full' price because you were covered. I hope that clears everything up. Again, thank-you for your patience and I hope this message helps you reach an understanding about what happened and why it happened. Dry Air Restoration"