Home Insurance With a Pool: What's Affected?

Having a pool can be a nice luxury, but it comes at a cost. Here's what you need to know about how a pool affects your home insurance rates.
Written by Brady Klopfer
Reviewed by Carrie Adkins
Depending on your homeowners insurance policy, your pool should be covered. However, your coverage will depend on how your homeowners insurance policy defines your pool.
Having a pool can be an absolute joy. Whether you like to swim laps for exercise or have pool parties on sunny weekends, a pool is one of the best features that a home can have.
That said, if a pool is part of your property, it needs to be insured. Like all other elements of your home, from
your house
to your garage to your shed, a pool needs to be covered by your insurance policy if you want to avoid costly bills should a serious accident or damage strike.
If you have a pool, it’s important to know exactly how it impacts your home insurance and the prices you have to pay. Thankfully, it’s all very straightforward.
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Pools on your home insurance policy

Depending on your home insurance provider, your pool will be classified in one of two ways: as part of your home or as an external structure on your property. This distinction matters when it comes to both the price of your home insurance and your coverage.
To find out whether your pool is considered part of your home or an external structure, contact your home insurance provider.

The cost of homeowners insurance with a pool

How your pool affects your home insurance rates depends on how your home insurance provider classifies your pool. If the pool is seen as part of the home, then you don’t have to pay any extra money to have the pool insured.
However, a pool does increase the cost of repairing your home, which means that it will bump up the
total price of your home insurance
.
In other words, if it would cost $350,000 to fully repair your house and $15,000 to fully repair your pool, then your insurance company would view your home as having a repair price tag of $365,000, and your home insurance premiums would rise to reflect that.
If your home insurance provider classifies your pool as an external structure, then you will need to list it when you purchase home insurance so your insurer knows that the pool is on your property.
Most home insurance packages cover external structures up to a very limited amount since most external structures are relatively cheap. So it’s possible that your home insurance package will only cover a small fraction of the cost necessary to repair or replace your pool in the event of damage.
If your pool is classified as an external structure, you’ll want to ask your home insurance provider how much coverage you have. If the coverage doesn’t seem sufficient to you, you can likely purchase extended external structure coverage to make sure that your plan adequately covers your pool. Usually, this extended coverage is only worth a small fee.
Thankfully for pool owners, it’s very rare to have excessive damage occur to your pool. In most cases, pools are made of concrete and built into the ground, meaning they’re very sturdy and unlikely to be seriously damaged, even in the event of a natural disaster or a fire.
Long story short, pools are a lot of fun, very durable, and don’t cost much to insure. Just make sure you know how your home insurance company classifies your pool, and you’re good to go.

FAQs

Are above-ground pools covered?

Yes, above-ground pools are covered, so long as you have personal property coverage. Usually, above-ground pools are classified as personal property by your insurance policy, rather than a structure.
Any accessories you own that go along with the pool, such as pool liner, should also be covered by personal property coverage.

Do you need to increase liability coverage when you get a pool?

It's highly recommended that you increase your liability coverage limits from $100,000 to $500,000 when you have a pool. This is because pools present a danger to other people. If someone gets injured on your property because of your property, you can be held liable, so you will need better liability coverage.
This will increase your homeowners insurance annual premium anywhere form $50 to $75.
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