If you have proof of the bills and the cheques are more, go back to the insurance company. If they find out you are the one that will be arrested for fraud.

This is fraud. You are not insured on a home that you have note bought. You have not bought the home until the note is signed.

If you hadn’t yet signed the note on the home, then you legally didn’t own it yet.

Your insurer should never have been asked to pay for the repairs, but the home constructor should have been required to make a claim against their own insurer.

What you describe leads me to believe that the builder was ‘self-insured’ for these kinds of losses and didn’t want to pay the repairs out of their own pocket but rather try to stick your insurer with it.

You should call you insurer immediately and make certain they know you did not own the house at the time of the damage. They’ll demand their money back or sue the builder directly for subrogation.

The checks were for more than the current claim estimate because they are likely paying for more repairs that haven’t been done yet. An insurer is not going to overpay for repairs.