Can Swimming Pools Affect Your Homeowners Insurance Policy?

Yes, you’re required to tell your insurance provider about your swimming pool. If you have a pool when getting your policy, your carrier should know it exists. If you were originally without one and installed a pool during your policy term, you should inform your carrier of the addition.

When getting home insurance with a pool, ensure your provider is aware of it so it can be protected under your policy. When quoting, you and your insurer work together to set policy limits that adequately protect your property from possible damages. Excluding a pool from your insurance will cause you to be underinsured, and you may not have enough coverage to rebuild adequately should you suffer property damage from a covered peril.

Adding a pool after you bound your policy changes your risk profile and coverage needs, so you should inform your insurer if you do so. Your provider may need to change some policy aspects to acknowledge or include the pool in the plan.

Additionally, purposely misleading your insurance company by lying or concealing a pool may be considered fraudulent and give your provider grounds to cancel your policy.

Yes, homeowners insurance is generally increased on homes with pools compared to similar houses without pools. Homeowners insurance with a pool is more expensive for two main reasons:

Companies usually determine appropriate coverage limits by accounting for your home’s replacement cost, which is the potential cost to rebuild based on construction and labor expenses. Houses that cost more to rebuild cost more to insure. Pools add to building costs, so they should be included in your coverage and will affect premiums.

Additionally, swimming pools increase the liability risk of a property. Drowning is the leading cause of death among children ages 1 to 4 and the second leading cause of unintentional death for children ages 5 to 14, according to the CDC.

Insurance companies don’t take this liability hazard lightly, and the increased cost of swimming pool insurance coverage will reflect this risk. The heightened liability risk causes home insurance with a pool to typically be more expensive.

It’s hard to say how much a pool will add to your homeowners insurance premiums, as every policyholder and property varies. Many factors affect rates, so the exact cost of house insurance with a pool will depend on many other personal and property-related factors.

As we touched on earlier, the effect of a pool on your home insurance varies based on how much it adds to your home’s replacement cost, which influences your dwelling coverage. It also depends on the liability risk the insurer believes the pool represents.

You can raise your liability limits yourself to protect your financial liability if you have a pool. Increasing your liability limits will boost your protection if an unintentional injury occurs on your property.

Raising your liability limits will cost you extra, but it may pay off with the added swimming pool liability insurance you have.

Many companies are hesitant to offer homeowners insurance on a pool with no fence. Companies generally prefer some safety measures, such as barriers to surround pools, which are often required by local building codes, anyway. Companies may exclude liability coverage on pools without enclosures.

Florida residential building code requires a barrier at least 48 inches tall to surround a pool to prevent children from unsupervised access. Property owners should also have a fence surrounding their yard that restricts strangers from entering the pool.

In addition to enclosures being a concern for insurance carriers, companies are also generally wary of slides and diving boards and may look to exclude liability coverage for incidents relating to such features, as they’re known to be dangerous for children. Companies may also exclude coverage for pools that sit empty without water for long periods.

Yes, in-ground pools are typically considered other structures in homeowners insurance coverage. Other structures coverage in your policy protects permanent property fixtures that aren’t attached to your main house, such as sheds, fences, and pools, from damage.

Other structures coverage typically maxes out at 10% of your dwelling coverage limit. So, if you have $300,000 of dwelling coverage in your policy, you’ll normally have $30,000 in other structures coverage to financially protect other structures on your property from covered perils.