First, nice to see more DIYing.

On the Geico claim- I wonder if this was a matter of the initial claim coming in at 10k ish, they approve based on "its under 75% of value" (or whatever metric they use) but then during repairs more work was uncovered.... they had already started.

If so, it is a good example of WHY they use the 75% metric- to allow for the cost overruns