Can You Cancel an AIG Claim if Your iPhone was Returned?

Hello,

I have a very weird luck story: I bought the iPhone 15 Pro 256GB Natural (love it!) and unfortunately lost it. Long story short, horrible rain storm flooded a gym parking lot and I ran to my car and it had fallen out of my pocket. Looked everywhere, ran to the gym to see if anyone returned it, etc.

Went home and loaded Find My and saw it at someone's house! I called it from my wife's phone a few times, played a sound, marked it as lost, and even sent a message to call my wife's phone. Nothing (and I'm not about to go to a gated community to try and get it back). I went through the process of a claim at AIG and it was approved that night. (I still have my old phone, thankfully.)

Next day, I checked Find My and it's at the gym. Person returned it! Apple theorizes they probably weren't going to return it until it became bricked.

Fast forward 2 weeks later and no replacement iPhone yet and dealing with AIG is a real pain. They already escalated it and don't have an answer (maybe Monday). My wife saw on official Apple Support that you can cancel the claim and set it up like a new device. Does anyone have any experience with that? My fear is that if I cancel the claim with AIG but can't restore the phone because it's still bricked, I won't be able to file another claim.

Thank you for any insight!