Background: I posted last week here on CB that a pipe burst in our wall and had leaked water into the dining room on the wood floors, gone into part of the kitchen, damaged the wall, etc

Update: Plumber came out and cut out the drywall and fixed the pipe that had broken. It was installed incorrectly when the house was built 15 years ago. Upon cutting open the drywall there was 6-8 inches of standing water in the wall which is what was leaking into the floor. Disaster relief company came out, took out the damaged dry wall, took out the damaged wood floors (about 10 x 8 section) took out the damaged cabinet, etc, treated it for mold, etc. Insurance adjuster came out, and due to having the same wood floor throughout the lower level of the house said the insurance co will pay for all of it to be replaced throughout the entire lower level and pay for other repairs.

Fast forward to now - insurance says it estimates $21,500 to fix everything including new floors throughout the ENTIRE bottom level. From that I have to pay 5k for my deductible. They're going to send us $14,500 now, remaining 2k is considered depreciation, and we can get that after turning in receipts.

So.......my wife really likes our wood floors, doesn't want to replace the entire ground level flooring and having the entire ground level (family, living, kitchen, dining, laundry, entry, home office) flooring pulled up and replaced would be a huge headache. Her idea a few minutes ago is to replace just the floors in the area that was damaged, providing of course we can find matching wood. Her thought is that this would save a good chunk of the $14,500 from the insurance company and to use the "savings" to do other things in the kitchen. (since the contractors will have to be there anyway to rebuild the cabinet she said she'd rather have new counter tops and keep the existing floors or something like that)

I have no desire to do anything fraudulent or dishonest. Would my wife's idea be insurance fraud or dishonest? Is that something that happens regularly with insurance companies that people don't spend the full insurance check on what it was budgeted for and it is expected and common? Thoughts?