Advice for resolving water damage dispute

I’m a very infrequent poster, career lurker. I’m in a bit of a contentious situation regarding water damage caused by a plumber to my property. I’ve exhausted my personal resources so thought I’d ask for some advice.

Doing my best to keep this concise: my father passed in March at which point my brother and I inherited his home. Within the week, we noticed a leaking faucet in the master tub – nothing major just a steady drip. Called a plumber out ASAP and, on inspection, determined the faucet needed to be replaced. I asked if there’s anything we could do to stop the leak in the interim and he said he’d give it a shot.

The next morning water was coming up from under the tub, flooding under the wood floors in the master bedroom. We cut off the water and I immediately called the plumber back out. This time it was the owner, a certified master plumber, who came. He agreed there was an issue (my understanding is: you touch it, it’s your liability). I asked him to bring his insurance out, he declined stating he’d make this right on his own. It’s important to note that at this time there’d been no contract, no invoice or anything in writing to indicate the nature of the problem, the intended fix and the resulting damages. Even this early on the plumber tried to tell me it was my fault for asking his guys if they could stop the leak.

Notwithstanding, I thought he’s an honest guy and I wanted to cooperate to make this right. He recommended a flooring company he’d worked with on many of his projects. This is where my trouble started. The flooring company was anything but transparent. After four months of back and forth, sometimes going weeks at a time without hearing back from them, I had not received any estimate or invoice. I even bought the wood myself to make the repair in the hope it would better control quality and cost.

At the five month mark I called the plumber and said I’d seek my own estimate. Got a guy who came in and turned my whole world upside down. Of note, the whole house is floored by engineered wood with a thicker-than-normal wear layer but still thin by comparison to any hardwood. Floors have been in that house a long time. The flooring guy said because of this, were we to replace only the wood in the master the sand and finish would not and could not match the rest of the house due to the effects of the sun on different parts of the floor. He said that any contiguous grain in the house (where the wood panels don’t flip from vertical to horizontal) connected to the bedroom would need to be sanded and finished to ensure we matched. I’m admittedly way out of my depth here (my dad passed unexpectedly, I’m not a homeowner with any experience dealing with wood floors), but this guy made a good argument especially since my brother and I are hoping to sell the house.

I take the estimate from my floor guy to the plumber. He said, and I quote, “that’s ridiculous”. He launched into how he had offered to make this right on his own but now he was going to have to turn it over to insurance. Little did I know what that actually meant…

So sparing a lot of detail here, plumber doesn’t have traditional liability insurance. He is part of a risk retention group. As such, he pays a fixed cost for endorsements by claim type (again way out of my depth here but that’s the language I’ve been hearing from his claim admin). The “carrier” is a company called Preferred Contractors Insurance Company (PCIC). All their claims are handled by a third party admin based out of California. Long story short, they send an adjustor out at the beginning of October.

By end of November I had a settlement agreement for less than half the estimate I got. When I asked if they could present evidence and details from the investigation, the admin (who was extremely nice and prompt in replying) said that this was the max their policy would allow LESS the cost of the investigation leaving me, the injured party, to pay for the processing. I asked if they could tell me what his maximum was and by how much their gross adjustment exceeded their maximum. They told me that information can only go to the claimant, ie the plumber.

At this point I’m still hoping to cooperate. I reached out to the plumber to ask them what the gross adjustment was, they hung up and said “subpoena us.” Emailed them, they said I’d be hearing from their attorney.

At this point, I’ve filed complaints with the Texas Board of Plumbing Examiners and the BBB but I’m thinking if I want to see any money out of this we’re headed to small claims.

So two questions for the community: According to the board a plumber is required to carry a minimum of $300k liability insurance. This risk retention policy sounds an awful lot like hes underinsured. Am I reading that right?

Second, am I out of line asking to see the gross adjustment? Having dealt with traditional insurance in the past they typically make transparent the result of their investigations. This risk retention policy seems to assume that the “insured” would handle any damages over and above the limit but there doesn’t seem to be any sort of mechanism compelling them to do so save for small claims.

I really don’t want to make this a sob story, there’s a lot grounded in reasonable thinking here. But the fact this happened within a month of my father’s passing has me feeling some sort of way. Any help is greatly appreciated!