Case Study — Water Mitigation

Jacksonville water mitigation co. recovered $340K in 21 days

First Coast Restoration | Jacksonville, FL | 9-check backlog

The problem

First Coast Restoration handles water damage mitigation across the Jacksonville metro — hot water line breaks, overflow floods, roof leaks after tropical storms. Water jobs are cash-flow brutal: equipment drying time runs 3–5 days, materials and labor are front-loaded, and every job produces a claim check with a mortgage company on it.

Owner Alicia B. was running a 9-check backlog — $340K frozen in loss draft queues across Wells Fargo, PennyMac, Chase, Truist, and Flagstar. The oldest check had been waiting 74 days. She was at the point of having to turn down work.

“We had three job leads sitting on my desk that we had to pass on. Not because we couldn’t do the work — because we couldn’t afford to front the equipment rental for another month waiting on checks to clear. It was painful. We were losing revenue because we were owed revenue.”

The CoPayee solution

Alicia signed up for CoPayee Pro and uploaded the entire backlog in 40 minutes. For each stuck check, CoPayee:

Read the check via AI OCR — payees, claim number, amount, conjunction
Matched the mortgage servicer from our database
Generated the complete servicer-specific packet, pre-filled
Sent e-sign invites to homeowner and contractor payees

The biggest win was discovering what was missing from the previous submissions. Two of the Wells Fargo packets had been rejected because of a missing Third-Party Authorization — which Alicia’s team hadn’t even known was required. CoPayee flagged it immediately.

Results

9 checks cleared in 21 days, including the 74-day-old Wells Fargo claim
$340,000 in funds released — an average of 16 days per check from CoPayee submission
3 new jobs taken on that previously would have been declined
18% monthly revenue increase attributed directly to restored cash flow

Key takeaway

“I thought CoPayee was a paperwork tool. It turned out to be a growth tool. The minute my cash stopped being trapped in loss drafts, I could start saying yes to jobs again. That’s a different business.”

— Alicia B., Owner, First Coast Restoration

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