Find out how a swimming pool affects your home insurance.
If you are thinking about building a swimming pool in your yard, then there are a lot of things to consider. One of the things that you need to think about is how a swimming pool affects your home insurance. Here what you need to know about pools and your home coverage.
- Home Insurance and Pool Liability
Insurers categorize swimming pools as an “attractive nuisance.” Attractive nuisances are features on a property that might attract a child and pose a risk to his or her safety. If you have a pool on your property, you will automatically be responsible for the wellbeing of any child who uses it, regardless of whether you have given them permission or not. As over 1,000 children drown in U.S. swimming pool-related incidents every year, your pool does come with significant risk.
Because swimming pools increase the homeowner’s personal liability risks, standard coverage limits might not be adequate. While a standard home insurance policy might offer $100,000 in personal liability coverage, a homeowner with a pool is recommended to purchase up to $500,000 in coverage. In some cases, homeowners will need to secure an umbrella policy to get even higher limits ofcoverage. Because higher coverage limits translate into higher insurance costs, it’s important to speak to your insurer to see how installing a pool will increase your premiums.
- Home Insurance and Pool Damage
If you build an in-ground pool on your property, then your home policy will cover the damages that your pool sustains. However, your coverage will differ depending on how your insurer classifies your pool. For instance, your insurer might include your pool in the replacement cost value of your policy. As the average in-ground pool costs $20,000 or more to install, it will increase the value of your home. This means that you will have to increase your replacement cost value, leading to an increase in your home insurance costs. Your insurer might also consider your pool as an external structure. In this case, your pool would have to be declared and listed in your policy. Most home policies cover external structures up to 10% of the overall policy replacement cost value. This means that, if the replacement cost of your home is $100,000, then your policy would cover up to $10,000 of damage to external structures. As this will not be enough to cover the full value of your home’s pool, you may need to purchase additional external structures coverage.
This is how a swimming pool affects your home insurance. Do you have further questions regarding your homeowners insurance? If so, then contact the experts at Mike Leonard Insurance Agency. Our dedicated team is eager to find you the right coverage from one of our many carriers including: Kemper, MetLife, Nationwide, Travelers, The Hartford, Safeco Insurance, Progressive, and American Strategic Insurance.