The
stakes have never been higher for marijuana legislation and the
insurance industry as lawmakers and regulators wrestle with the
ramifications of legalizing this once universally banned substance.
The
past decade has been undeniably transformative for U.S. marijuana laws.
To date, 28 states and the District of Columbia have broadly legalized
cannabis in one form or another, including the recent legalization of
recreational marijuana in California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada
during the November 2016 election cycle.
But
whether it’s being used as medicine or for leisure, the marijuana
legalization trend has resulted in myriad state laws that conflict with
the federal government’s official position on the production, possession
and consumption of cannabis. What’s more, the particulars of individual
state laws are anything but uniform, and what’s considered legal in one
state may be unlawful in another — even if they both allow for some
degree of marijuana possession or consumption.
As a result, the insurance implications are as varied as they are complicated.
“The insurance industry has run into an interesting area where they know marijuana is legal in some states but that it’s also not
legal according to federal law. And that’s led to a real quandary,”
says Brenda Wells, director of the risk management and insurance program
at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. “Do they
cover it? Do they not cover it? And if they do cover it, how is it
valued? These are just some of the questions they’re wrestling with at
this stage. And it can get confusing.”
To help you wade through these muddy waters, insuranceQuotes offers some key considerations for marijuana’s impact on various components of the insurance industry.
Marijuana and homeowners insurance
The
question is simple: If you have some marijuana and it’s damaged in a
fire or stolen from your property, will your homeowners insurance policy
cover the loss?
The answer, however, is not so straightforward.
Some
insurers are looking to individual state laws to establish a precedent
for coverage. For instance, Allstate went on the record in 2014 saying
it would cover the loss of marijuana in Colorado, where cannabis is
legal for both medicinal and recreational use.
“In
Colorado, lawfully possessed, processed marijuana is not excluded and
is limited to the personal property limit of the homeowners policy,”
Allstate said in a statement that year. “Whether it is medical or
non-medical is not relevant to coverage. Fire is a covered peril, and
coverage of an accidental fire would not be impacted by whether or not
it was started in connection to lawful marijuana use.”
They
added that marijuana plants grown with a state license — and not
exceeding the legal state limit — would be “limited to the perils and
limits under additional protection for trees, shrubs, plants and lawns.”
But,
says Wells, this does not address the more perplexing problem of
marijuana’s monetary value and conflicts between state and federal laws.
“Even
if insurers are writing policies in line with state laws, there’s the
critical problem of valuation,” says Wells, who is currently working on
an update to her seminal 2014 paper title Marijuana Legalization: Implications for Property/Casualty Insurance.
“It’s incredibly hard to establish a market value for marijuana across
the board, and how this is handled is going to vary from state to
state.”
For
instance, a federal court in Hawaii ruled in 2012 that a homeowners
policy did not cover the theft of her marijuana plants grown for
medicinal use.
The
homeowner, Barbara Tracy, was allowed to grow and possess marijuana for
her own medical use, and after 12 plants were stolen she submitted a
claim to USAA for $45,600. USAA initially agreed to pay Tracy $8,801 for
the claim, but Tracy sued, claiming the plants had a far greater value.
USAA
argued that because marijuana is federally classified as an illegal
Schedule I substance (akin to heroin, morphine, and LSD) they were under
no obligation to cover the loss at all. The court ultimately agreed
with USAA, stating that even though Hawaii law permits the use of
marijuana for medicinal use it is illegal under the Controlled
Substances Act and therefore not subject to homeowners’ insurance
coverage.
Some
states are pre-emptively combatting these types of conflicts by
including language in marijuana legalization laws that prevents insurers
from denying claims like Tracy’s.
For
instance, Oregon’s Control, Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana and
Hemp Act states, “No contract shall be unenforceable on the basis that
manufacturing, distributing, dispensing, possessing or using marijuana
is prohibited by federal law.”
In other states, possession limits are so low that insurance companies aren’t bothering to fight claims.
For
instance, Wells points out that Connecticut allows for the possession
of up to 2.5 ounces of “useable marijuana” for medicinal purposes.
“If
2.5 ounces were stolen or lost in a fire, the value of that loss would
probably be less than $1,000,” Wells says. “And an insurance company
isn’t going to go to the mat over such a small claim.”
Nonetheless,
there is a lot of money at stake here on the whole. According to
Forbes, the legal U.S. marijuana market exceeded $6.5 billion in sales
in 2016, and that number is only projected to climb in the coming years.
“First
and foremost, the insurance industry needs to figure out whether or not
they want to cover marijuana losses, and if they do they need to be
prepared to pay claims.
If
not, they need to change their contracts to expressly exclude it,”
Wells says. “But that still doesn’t solve the bigger problem of how to
value the plants. What is a fully-grown marijuana plant worth? No one
has an answer to that yet.”
Marijuana and life insurance
As
more and more Americans legally smoke cannabis for recreational and
medicinal use, life insurance providers have had to grapple with its
impact on the application and underwriting process.
According
to insurance specialist Michael Quinn, life insurance providers are
wrestling with whether or not smoking marijuana carries the same health
risks as smoking cigarettes.
“Regular
smokers are charged tobacco rates, which are often four times higher
than those for non-tobacco users,” Quinn says. “But some insurers are
deciding to treat marijuana differently.”
For
instance, Prudential tends to offer some of the lowest life insurance
rates for medical marijuana users because they do not place them in the
same risk pool as cigarette smokers.
“Based
on your marijuana use alone, there is no telling what kind of rates you
will be offered. You could technically get rates anywhere from
substandard to preferred plus,” Quinn says. “However, Prudential looks
at the reason behind your medical marijuana use, and this means that
your rates will be based on the severity of your health condition.”
For
instance, let’s say a hypothetical man named Jim smokes medical
marijuana to help with insomnia. As a 50-year-old in otherwise perfect
health, Prudential would offer him a preferred plus non-tobacco rate.
If,
however, Jim uses medicinal marijuana to ease the symptoms of multiple
sclerosis, he would get a higher rate based on the severity of the
condition being treated, not his use of marijuana.
Nonetheless,
the extent to which your life insurance might be affected by smoking
marijuana will depend on the individual insurer and the frequency of
your use.
“For
underwriting consideration, the first thing we must determine is
whether the use is recreational, or if the proposed insured had been
issued a prescription for medical use,” says Pinney Insurance
underwriter Mike Woods. “If it’s for medicinal purposes, underwriting is
going to be looking to the specific issue that the marijuana is being
used to treat.”
For recreational use, Woods says the underwriter is going to want to know the frequency of use.
“Cannabis
contains carcinogens, and evidence suggests that heavy cannabis use may
be associated with oral cavity, pharynx, esophageal, and lung cancers,”
Woods says. “Because of those concerns, many carriers will assign
tobacco use rates for any use.”
Marijuana’s impact on businesses
For
businesses in the legalized marijuana industry, insurance providers are
still operating in unchartered waters, says Tim Davis, workers
compensation and general liability insurance expert.
“Because
marijuana is still against federal laws, this causes a major limitation
in the marketplace for any business that serves or operates in the
marijuana industry,” Davis says. “General liability exposure is still
untested, and since the exposure is too new to have time to develop, we
will have to see how the premiums for this industry shake out.”
For
instance, if you own a marijuana retail store and someone falls while
shopping there, general liability insurance would cover any medical
costs incurred by the shopper. What’s more, product liability issues may
come into play for marijuana retailers selling edible marijuana food
products.
“Premiums
are still incredibly high for the few carriers who offer insurance to
the marijuana industry because no one knows yet if this type of
insurance will be profitable,” says Davis. “There’s still no standard to
follow across the board.”
When
it comes to workers compensation insurance, Davis says there are a few
more carriers willing to offer coverage to the marijuana industry.
“Workers
compensation insurance is primarily run based on state laws, so you see
that market opening up a little in states where marijuana is now
legal,” Davis says. “But that number is still very limited due to the
social stigmas attached to the product. Mostly, the carriers offering
coverage are non-rated or smaller carriers who aren’t worried about a
negative public image.”
Assuming
the national trend for marijuana legalization continues, Davis believes
this will change rapidly over the next five-to-10 years as courts and
governments address some of the key coverage concerns and conflicts
between state and federal law.
“Once
carriers can properly assess what their risk is and know how the
judicial system will defend the policies, it will be much easier for
more major carriers to enter the market,” Davis says.
Marijuana and auto insurance
The
intersection of legal marijuana and auto insurance has been fairly
uncomplicated thus far, and that’s because the insurance ramifications
for getting caught driving high are no different than those associated
with driving under the influence of alcohol.
“If
you’re convicted of driving under the influence of marijuana your
insurance rates will go up, just like they would if you were charged
with a traditional DUI for booze,” Wells says.
However,
one of the most significant questions concerning legalization is
whether or not more recreational pot legalization has lead to more
incidents involving so-called drugged driving. It’s been four years
since Colorado and Washington were the first to legalize recreational
marijuana, and the data is still a bit unclear.
“I
would say the legalization of marijuana has caused a spike in auto
accidents for a few reasons, and the most significant one is that new
users who don’t have any tolerance to marijuana often overuse it and are
not aware of its effects until it’s too late,” says Lindsey Parlin, a
Colorado-based criminal defense attorney who specializes DUI cases.
“Even if you smoked 30 years ago, you might not realize that the effects
of the marijuana out there today are much more significant.”
Nonetheless,
it’s very difficult to find any empirical data that links marijuana
legalization to an increase in stoned driving in any of the seven states
that now allow for its recreational use.
“A big problem is that there is no separate DUI law for driving under
the influence of marijuana,” says Sam Tracy, former chairman of the
international nonprofit Students for Sensible Drug Policy.
“They just sort of wrap it into the alcohol laws, so if you get charged with a DUI we don’t have data that splits out marijuana versus alcohol versus prescription drugs ... so we haven’t been able to get a solid understanding of the effects of legalization.”
“They just sort of wrap it into the alcohol laws, so if you get charged with a DUI we don’t have data that splits out marijuana versus alcohol versus prescription drugs ... so we haven’t been able to get a solid understanding of the effects of legalization.”
Still, there are some who urge a great deal of caution despite the lack of data.
“With
the higher prevalence of marijuana in the world, what we’re seeing is a
sort of denial of the fact that marijuana can be impairing,” says Chris
Cochran, spokesperson for California’s Office of Traffic Safety.
“Marijuana is not a benign substance when it comes to driving ability.
It throws off your perception of time, loosens inhibitions, and changes
reaction times. We can’t just say, ‘Oh, people who are high drive slower
and nicer.’
“Anything you put into your body that will alter your brain chemistry is potentially impairing and dangerous behind the wheel.”
Medical marijuana and health insurance
Even
if you live in one of the 28 states that have legalized marijuana for
medicinal use, don’t expect your health insurance to foot the bill.
Because
of its federal designation as a Schedule I controlled substance, health
insurance providers have their hands tied when it comes to reimbursing
patients using medicinal cannabis, says Wells.
What’s
more, marijuana is not an approved medical treatment by the FDA, and
because of its Schedule I classification extensive clinical research on
its medicinal efficacy has been difficult to obtain.
“That probably isn’t going to change anytime soon,” Wells says.
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