Your agent cannot speak for other companies. Shop around and call his bluff.

Yes, do shop around. And you'll have to get moving because it's likely your mortgage (assuming you have one) is contingent upon adequate insurance coverage. Perhaps your agent/insurance co is trying to get out of the policy for some reason, or wants to sell you a more expensive or more limited one.

Are pier foundations customary in your neck of the woods? Does your home inspection report note any repair or maintenance issues related to them? Do you live in an area with seismic (earthquake) concerns; perhaps that's the basis of this.

How you could remedy the situation in five days is beyond me!

Good luck.

Molly~

A co worker had something similar happen to her, but in her case it was the insurance for their church. After having insurance with this company for a number of years, all of a sudden they got a cancellation notice because they were too close to a gas station. Same kind of deal, imminent cancellation. She called around to other insurance companies and found out that her current insurance company had to give them a certain amount of time (30, 60 days? not sure exactly) to find coverage before they could cancel them. So they shopped around and got another policy. Cost them more $ unfortunately, but they got coverage. So start calling some other companies and find out your options, They agreed to cover you now all of sudden they won't? They may have to cover you for a minium amount of time before cancellation, since you must have had coverage with them for your mortgage.

Abbey

poooo.. your agent has gas... or made some sort of mistake.. in any case there are TONS of houses without full basements. Start calling around and do talk to your agent that just sounds silly but it does happen. We just got a letter on our rental duplex that they are/were not going to renew our policy if we did not "fix" the fence. Well the day they came by we had taken boards out of the fence to figure out how big to make a new gate.. what a pain. So I just hammered the boards back up.. took a photo and sent it to them. Then they sent a letter that the tree near our duplex is too big and must come down.. I mean REALLY.... what pain.. and this one is going to cost.. about 1 grand. ugh.

good luck

Maddiemom

thanks guys for all of your replies. you really put all of my assumptions in this matter to rest. to answer username: goodhouskeeping, we live here in portland, or. there does not seem to be a problem with earthquakes here :). and our home inspection passed just fine. little things here and there, but nothing major. i mean for god's sake the house is 101 years old. the problem i have is, how our insurance agent handled the whole matter. scandalous i tell ya, scandalous! luckily, when i read some other postings last night, i found comfort in the fact that there are company's out there to insure us. the search begins tomorrow, right after i tear our insurance agent a new one, for his poor, scandalous communication.
much love,
carrie

It is such a bummer about old houses. We have a 111 yr old house, with just a bunch of loose stones in our foundation, lol, and a log holding it up. We had trouble finding insurance but in our case it was electricity, we had 10 days to update the service panel from 60Amp which we did. No one said anything about the basement. I agree your rep sucks, shop around! And pay attention, because on the old house forum, these kinds of houses do get dropped often. You should get more notice though, call the 800 number for the policy and forget the useless rep to find out what the story is, and explain your 5 day notice. Good luck!

There are good insurance agents and incompetent ones, and the same for insurance companies. You just had a loser and it's good to know now. Now you can get with someone else that has an interest in having your business.

Around here not having a full basement is NORMAL. Old homes here have "michigan basements". Basically stone walls, low ceiling and dirt floors. Wouldn't be a house over 50 or 60 years old insured around here if no one would insure without a full basement. That's silly. Call around and find a better agent.

Our 1700 basement had a ground basement complete with a running spring.We had insurance, but since then we concreted it.