Dividends offer people a great answer to the age-old question of how to get rewarded for the risks they take in investing without having to sell the shares they've purchased. Yet if there's a problem with dividends, it's that those payments are never guaranteed. When a dividend gets cut, it often takes the company's shares down with it, meaning that investors lose some or all of the income stream they were expecting as well as a big chunk of the capital that generated it.

To address that particular risk, you may want to consider dividend-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs). While ETFs won't eliminate the risk that companies may cut their payouts, they will provide diversification that will reduce the net impact on your overall portfolio from the loss of any one dividend.

With that risk-and-reward trade-off in mind, three Motley Fool contributors went looking for dividend-focused ETFs that are worth considering for your portfolio. They picked the JPMorgan Equity Premium ETF (NYSEMKT: JEPI), the Vanguard Real Estate ETF (NYSEMKT: VNQ), and the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (NYSEMKT: VIG).

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Source Fool.com