your home has a swimming pool, aggressive dog, trampoline or other characteristic deemed risky, you’ll likely pay a higher premium.

If your home has a swimming pool, aggressive dog, trampoline or other characteristic deemed risky, you’ll likely pay a higher premium.

Because of the drowning risks both to your family and anyone visiting your property, a pool will significantly increase your home insurance premium. Securing your pool with its own fence, installing self-locking gates and having safety equipment readily accessible may be enough to lower your risk in the eyes of an insurance company.

However, the best way to avoid the higher premiums is avoid installing a pool at all. The money saved on the insurance may even be enough for a gym or private pool membership, a place where someone else assumes all of the financial risk.

Along with pools, trampolines make up what insurance companies refer to as “attractive nuisances.” They’re fun, but the risks involved make them a headache to insure. You can reduce your personal injury risk by installing a net around your trampoline, but it won’t be enough to lower your premium. The easiest way to do that is to not get one in the first place or invest in safer recreational yard equipment instead.