SIGNS OF MAINSTREAM FOR CANNABIS: BUSINESS INSURANCE

Cannabis has been legal in California for two decades. But you couldn’t buy insurance for your cultivation or your dispensary at any price. That may all change soon. One sign is that the California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones just sent a letter last week to the state’s insurers urging them to create and sell insurance products to the California cannabis industry at reasonable rates.

“The mission of the California Department of Insurance is ‘Insurance Protection for All Californians.’ We work with the insurance industry to promote a healthy insurance market that offers insurance products to meet the ever-changing needs of Californians and California businesses. This includes making insurance available to the state licensed legal cannabis businesses in California.” — Jones in the Apr. 20 letter

Finally, cannabis is insurable. That should remove all doubt that this industry is headed for normalization. It also allows cannabis entrepreneurs to manage certain risk as part of a best-practices structure for their organization.

This is by no means an insignificant development. It’s the precursor to many other indices of commercialization and acceptance of this nascent industry including in vital areas of banking, finances, education and research & development.