California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones sent a letter last week to the state’s insurers urging them to offer insurance products for the legal cannabis industry. In the letter, Jones indicated that he would “not object to proposed rates for the industry that have a rational basis.”
“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
Jones said that President Donald Trump’s recent decision to abandon Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ cannabis policies “should reduce further the risk of federal prosecution of legal cannabis businesses and the insurers that provide them insurance,” adding that, even prior to that decision, “there have been no reported instances of federal prosecution of a cannabis business lawfully operating in a state that legalized cannabis.”
The commissioner notes that the cannabis industry currently has revenues of $9 billion and is projected to reach $60 billion by 2027. Jones approved the first admitted insurance carrier in the nation to write cannabis insurance products in the state last year.