Cannabis Insurance Carriers in 2026:
Who Actually Writes This Class, Who Declines, and Why
Most commercial insurance for cannabis-related businesses is still found in the non-admitted market rather than with standard admitted carriers, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). So for a plant-touching operation there is usually no admitted market to shop: the work is qualifying your operation against the excess and surplus lines programs that will look at it at all.
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- There is usually no admitted market to shop. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners reports that most commercial insurance for cannabis-related businesses is still found in the non-admitted market, with gaps concentrated in smaller businesses, ancillary services, cannabis-infused products, and social consumption lounges.
- The April 2026 rescheduling did not open the admitted market, because it was partial. The final order published in the Federal Register and effective April 28, 2026 moved only marijuana in a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drug product and marijuana under a state medical marijuana license to Schedule III. Adult-use marijuana expressly remained in Schedule I.
- Excess and surplus lines is a market, not a penalty. Surplus lines wrote $131 billion in direct premium in 2024 — about 12% of the whole United States property and casualty market — and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners notes its historical insolvency rate is low, though surplus lines policies carry no state guaranty fund protection.
- Limits are one of the gaps the regulator names. Most insurers in this class offer $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate on general liability, property damage, and product liability, while insureds may need $5 million, $10 million, or more, per the market report the National Association of Insurance Commissioners cites.
- Declines are usually about the operation, not the industry. On the excess and surplus lines program Anvo accesses, eligibility turns on named class, state, square footage, and total insured value — which means a well-documented submission can be placeable where a vague one is not.
Why standard carriers decline cannabis, and why April 2026 did not change it
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners attributes carriers' absence from cannabis to conflicting state and federal laws, emerging standardization of business practices, and rapidly evolving regulations, which it says "have largely discouraged insurers from participating in this market." Read that closely: the reasons given are legal and regulatory uncertainty. Uncertainty is the kind of reason that can move when the law moves.
The law did move in 2026, and it is easy to describe wrongly — so here it is against the primary text. On April 22, 2026 the Acting Attorney General signed a final order that took effect April 28, 2026, transferring two specific things from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA): marijuana contained in an FDA-approved drug product, and marijuana subject to a state-licensed medical marijuana program (Federal Register, 2026-08176). Everything else — including all adult-use marijuana — expressly remained in Schedule I. A separate, still-undecided proceeding on rescheduling marijuana generally went to an expedited administrative hearing beginning June 29, 2026 (Federal Register, 2026-08177); the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) maintains a running index of the docket's filings and orders (DEA, marijuana rescheduling regulatory actions).
So if you operate an adult-use dispensary, cultivation site, or delivery service, the federal predicate that admitted carriers cite — the state-versus-federal conflict the National Association of Insurance Commissioners describes — has not changed for you. That is the honest answer to "didn't cannabis get legalized?" — and it is worth knowing before a renewal conversation, because a broker or carrier representative who tells you rescheduling has reopened the standard market for adult-use operations is working from secondary coverage rather than the order itself. This page is about who will write you; if what you need first is what to buy, our cannabis business insurance guide is the pillar this page sits under and covers the coverage taxonomy itself.
Watch the freshness of whatever page you are reading — including the regulators'
This is a live example of why sourcing matters in this class. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners topic page on cannabis and insurance carries a "Last Updated" date of December 19, 2025 and describes the December 2025 executive order directing agencies to reclassify marijuana as a process "expected to be finalized in 2026." It has not yet been revised to reflect that what actually issued in April 2026 was a narrow, two-category order. The page remains an excellent source for market structure and coverage gaps; it is simply not the place to read the current scheduling status. For that, read the Federal Register documents themselves.
Two federal bills would change the calculus more than rescheduling has. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners describes the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act, which would give cannabis businesses access to financial services, and the Clarifying Law Around Insurance of Marijuana (CLAIM) Act, which would let insurers cover cannabis businesses without federal repercussions — and notes that both have gained support but await Senate approval. Until one of them passes, the market structure described in the rest of this page is the market you are buying in.
The four places cannabis coverage comes from — and what each is good at
Cannabis coverage comes from four distinguishable places: a thin sliver of admitted paper, the excess and surplus lines market where the National Association of Insurance Commissioners says most of it sits, alternative structures such as captives and risk retention groups, and ancillary-only paper for businesses that never touch the plant. Which one you belong in is decided mostly by whether your operation touches the plant and where it is licensed.
First, the distinction the whole class turns on: admitted versus excess and surplus
An admitted carrier is licensed by your state's insurance department, files its rates and forms there, and its policyholders are backed by the state guaranty fund if it becomes insolvent. An excess and surplus lines (also called non-admitted, or surplus lines) carrier is not licensed in your state but is eligible to write risks there through a licensed surplus lines broker. It can write its own forms and price freely, which is why it is generally able to quote a class the admitted market will not. The trade-offs are real and worth stating plainly: you pay a state surplus lines premium tax on top of premium, plus a stamping fee in many states, the policy language is manuscript rather than standardized, and — per the National Association of Insurance Commissioners — guaranty fund coverage is not available in the surplus lines market, though it also notes the historical insolvency rate of surplus lines insurers is low. Our admitted vs. excess & surplus guide walks through what that distinction changes for a buyer.
The scale is worth internalizing, because "surplus lines" often gets heard as "fringe." The National Association of Insurance Commissioners reports the United States surplus lines market surpassed $100 billion in direct premiums written in 2023 and grew a further 12.2% in 2024 to $131 billion — roughly 12% of a United States property and casualty market that wrote over $1 trillion in 2024. Of that surplus lines premium, United States insurers accounted for 75%, Lloyd's syndicates 16%, and non-United States insurers 9%. Surplus lines is where new and hard-to-price exposures are underwritten first; the regulator's own framing is that once a coverage generates enough data it may migrate into the admitted market. Cannabis is early in exactly that cycle.
| Market | What it realistically writes for cannabis | Strengths | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Admitted carriers | Mostly ancillary and non-plant-touching businesses; some state-specific programs. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners describes admitted participation as largely discouraged by the federal–state conflict. | Standard forms, state-filed rates, guaranty fund backing. In our experience this is also the paper lenders and landlords accept with the fewest questions. | Cannabinoid and controlled-substance exclusions can quietly remove the exposure you bought the policy for. Read the exclusions before assuming admitted paper covers plant-touching work. |
| Excess and surplus lines carriers and programs | Per the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, most of it — which, on the programs we see, means retail, dispensary, delivery, cultivation, processing, manufacturing, extraction, distribution, transport, and cannabis-tenant property. | Generally willing to quote the class at all; manuscript forms can be built around the actual operation. The program Anvo accesses quotes through an online platform, which in our experience makes turnaround faster than a traditional specialty submission. | No guaranty fund; surplus lines tax added, plus a stamping fee in many states; limits typically capped well below what a large contract demands. |
| Captives and risk retention groups | Larger or multi-state operators pooling risk. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners notes state-based programs, captives, and risk retention groups "are being explored to address these gaps." | Control over terms and retained economics; can cover exposures nobody will write. | Capital, governance, and fronting requirements generally put this out of reach for a single-site operator. A risk retention group is also generally limited to liability coverage, so property usually has to be placed separately. |
| Ancillary-only paper | Consultants, software, security, packaging, logistics brokers, and landlords who do not handle product. | Sometimes placeable in the standard market at standard pricing. | The moment product moves through your hands or your building, you are usually reclassified. Do not assume last year's ancillary classification survived a change in operations. |
For a plant-touching operator, that table collapses to one practical conclusion: the second row is your market, and the job is qualifying into it. The rest of this page is about how to do that — and about the one coverage question that, in our experience, decides more cannabis placements than any other, which is whether product liability is inside your general liability policy or outside it.
What actually triggers a decline — and it is rarely "cannabis"
Once you are in front of a market that writes the class, a decline is in our experience almost always driven by a specific, nameable attribute rather than by the industry itself. On the excess and surplus lines cannabis program Anvo accesses, the gating attributes are the named class of operation, the state, the square footage of the location, and the total insured value (TIV) at that location — so most declines can be predicted from the application before it is ever submitted.
That is the single most useful thing to understand about this market, because it changes what you should do about it. If the industry were the problem, there would be nothing to work on. If square footage and total insured value are the problem, then on that program the operator with a 30,000 square foot site and a clean schedule of values is placeable and the one with a 60,000 square foot site is not — and knowing which you are is a five-minute exercise rather than a three-week marketing effort.
The decline triggers, grouped
| Trigger | Why it bites | What to do about it |
|---|---|---|
| State ineligibility | Programs in this class are typically built state by state. The operator program Anvo accesses excludes Idaho, Hawaii, and Louisiana, and its cannabis-tenant property counterpart excludes Hawaii and Louisiana. In a state where cannabis is not legal at all, a plant-touching operator has no path regardless of the program. | Confirm the state is in the program footprint before anything else. This is the cheapest disqualifier to check and, in our experience, the most common one. |
| Size beyond the appetite envelope | On the operator program Anvo accesses, the envelope is sales of $15 million and under, a maximum of 35,000 square feet per location, and up to $5 million total insured value per location. Cross any of those and the program is out regardless of loss history. | Know your sales, square footage, and total insured value per location to the number. If you are over, the conversation moves to layered or alternative structures, not to a better story. |
| Occupancy hazard — especially combustible extraction | Hydrocarbon extraction using butane or propane is commonly classified as a Class I Division 1 (C1D1) hazardous-location occupancy: explosive atmosphere, hazardous-location electrical requirements, and a commercial property exposure that is commonly underwritten as a separate class from the rest of cannabis. The competitive research behind this page found it is the exposure page-one competitors mention and never explain. | Document the extraction method, the booth or room certification, the electrical classification, and the engineering controls. On the program Anvo accesses, combustible extraction manufacturers are a named eligible class — but the submission has to prove which kind of extraction you run. |
| Consumption on premises | Social consumption lounges are one of the gaps the National Association of Insurance Commissioners names explicitly as still underserved. The cannabis-tenant property program Anvo accesses excludes consumption lounges as a tenant operation outright, alongside bars and nightclubs, residential exposures, and operations open past midnight. | If consumption or hemp-derived beverages are part of the model, treat it as a separate placement problem with its own market and its own bar and nightclub-style liquor and impairment analysis. |
| Product exposure the buyer did not know was excluded | The psychoactive effect of cannabis raises the risk that products are deemed mislabeled, misrepresented, or harmful, and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners notes that while standard general liability accounts for such claims in non-cannabis businesses, most insurers hesitate to provide that coverage for cannabis businesses. Product liability is therefore frequently a separate purchase rather than an included one. | Ask, in writing, whether products and completed operations are included or excluded — and whether a recall is covered at all. Voluntary recalls are commonly outside the policy; see our guide to product recall and contamination insurance for how the two differ. |
| Classification drift | An operator licensed as a distributor that quietly began infusing, or a manufacturer that added extraction, is no longer the risk that was underwritten. In our experience across classes, mid-term operational changes are one of the most common reasons a renewal that looked routine is non-renewed instead. | Report operational changes at the time they happen, not at renewal. It is a cheaper conversation before the loss than after it. |
Notice what is not on that list: your loss history, your years in business, and your credit. In our experience those matter to pricing once you are eligible, and they are almost never what ends the conversation.
How the placement actually works, step by step
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners notes that it is the surplus lines transaction that is regulated, and puts the licensed surplus lines broker in charge of confirming the insurer is eligible to write in the state and of remitting the surplus lines premium tax to the home state. So part of what you are buying in a cannabis placement is the compliance of the transaction, not only the policy.
In practice the sequence looks like this, and the order matters because each step can end the process cheaply rather than expensively:
- 1. Classify the operation against a named class list. Programs in this class typically enumerate eligible operations rather than describing them generally. The operator program Anvo accesses names retailers, dispensaries, non-storefront delivery to home, indoor and outdoor cultivators, growers, processors, transporters, distributors, manufacturers without extraction, non-combustible extraction manufacturers, and combustible extraction manufacturers. If your operation is not on the list, then in our experience no amount of underwriting narrative helps.
- 2. Check state eligibility and confirm who holds the surplus lines license. In states where the carrier is non-admitted, the placement runs through a licensed surplus lines broker. This is a normal, regulated arrangement — but it is also where the surplus lines tax and, in many states, a stamping fee enter the premium, so it should be disclosed to you in the quote, not discovered on the invoice.
- 3. Fix the limits question early. This is one of the gaps the National Association of Insurance Commissioners flags: most insurers in this class offer $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate while insureds may need $5 million to $10 million or more. On the program Anvo accesses, premises and products liability goes up to $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate. If a landlord, lender, or state license condition demands more than that, plan the excess layer as part of the original placement — see umbrella and excess liability — rather than discovering the shortfall at contract signing.
- 4. Decide the liability form, and the retroactive date with it. The operator program Anvo accesses offers general liability with or without products liability, on an occurrence or a claims-made form, with a retroactive date available up to five years. A claims-made form with a short retroactive date is not equivalent to an occurrence form, and in our experience that difference is the single most commonly misread line on a specialty quote comparison.
- 5. Build the property side around the growth stages. Cannabis stock changes value between seed, seedling, flowering plant, harvested material, and finished product. The operator program Anvo accesses includes property covering the operation from seed through sale, and business personal property from $250 per location. Confirm at which stage each limit applies, and whether outdoor crop is in or out.
- 6. Layer in the lines the enumerated program does not carry. A cannabis operation still needs workers' compensation for its staff, commercial auto for owned vehicles, and — if product moves — cargo and inland marine cover, because standard auto policies commonly exclude the cannabis cargo itself. Fleet-led operations often belong with our commercial fleets practice rather than in a packaged operator program.
- 7. If you are the landlord, this is a different placement entirely. A property owner renting to a cannabis tenant is buying lessor's risk only (LRO) cover, not operator cover. The cannabis-tenant program Anvo accesses runs up to $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate on liability, includes building, ordinance or law, and business personal property up to $50,000 per building, and is bounded by $5 million total insured value, 35,000 square feet, three stories, and no more than 30% vacancy. Our commercial real estate page covers the wider landlord picture.
- 8. Plan for a cash premium. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners notes that when cannabis businesses do obtain coverage, most need to pay premiums in cash — an operational problem that ordinary businesses never have to solve, and one worth raising with your broker before binding rather than at the payment deadline.
For smaller single-location operators, a great deal of this can travel in a packaged form — but do not assume a business owner's policy written for a standard retailer is available or appropriate here; the National Association of Insurance Commissioners states that gaps remain, "especially for smaller businesses" as well as in ancillary services, cannabis-infused products, and social consumption lounges. A packaged form is worth asking for; it is not worth assuming.
Why a cannabis submission cannot be "shopped" the way everything else can
Anvo's internal carrier appetite guide — the working document our team uses to decide where a submission goes — lists cannabis, marijuana, hemp, and cannabidiol as a declined class across essentially the whole admitted panel we access. That fact by itself is not surprising. What it does to the work is the part worth passing on.
For an ordinary commercial risk, the value a broker adds is breadth: put the same submission in front of several appetites and let them compete. For cannabis, that mechanism does not exist, because the appetites are not there to compete. So the work inverts. Instead of marketing a submission widely, we qualify it narrowly and early — state, named class, square footage, total insured value, extraction method, consumption on premises — against a small number of specialty envelopes, and we tell the operator within the first conversation whether they are inside one or outside all of them. Operators are sometimes surprised that we are not "getting several quotes." The honest version is that a fast, specific no is worth more here than a slow, broad maybe, and the accounts that go badly are the ones where nobody said the word "ineligible" out loud early enough.
This is an observation about our own carrier panel and placement process, not a client anecdote — Anvo is early in this class and does not attribute stories to identifiable businesses. No carrier is named. Details generalized to protect client and market confidentiality.
Frequently asked questions about cannabis insurance carriers and placement
Mostly excess and surplus lines carriers and the specialty programs that sit in front of them. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners reports that most commercial insurance for cannabis-related businesses is still found in the non-admitted market, with some admitted participation in ancillary and non-plant-touching operations and with state-based programs, captives, and risk retention groups being explored to close remaining gaps. Anvo does not publish carrier names on this page; which market a given operation belongs in depends on its state, named class, square footage, and total insured value.
Because of legal and regulatory uncertainty. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners attributes the reluctance to conflicting state and federal laws, emerging standardization of business practices, and rapidly evolving regulations, and says that policy language tailored specifically to the cannabis industry is crucial in providing adequate coverage. Those are the reasons the regulator gives, and they are the kind of reasons that can change when federal law changes.
Not for adult-use operations. The final order effective April 28, 2026 moved only two categories to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act: marijuana in a Food and Drug Administration approved drug product, and marijuana under a state-licensed medical marijuana program. All other marijuana, including adult-use, expressly remained in Schedule I, and a separate proceeding on rescheduling marijuana generally went to an expedited hearing beginning June 29, 2026 without a published outcome as of this review. Treat any claim that the standard market has reopened for adult-use cannabis with caution and ask to see the order it relies on.
It means the carrier is not licensed in your state but is eligible to write there through a licensed surplus lines broker, so it can use its own policy forms and set its own price. That freedom is what makes a cannabis quote possible at all. The trade-offs, per the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, are that a surplus lines premium tax applies, the forms are not state-filed and standardized, and state guaranty fund protection is not available in the surplus lines market.
There is no state guaranty fund behind it, so the carrier's own financial strength is what stands behind your claim. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners is direct about both halves of this: guaranty fund coverage is not available in the surplus lines market, and the historical insolvency rate of surplus lines insurers is low thanks to state-based solvency monitoring. Ask your broker for the carrier's current financial strength rating and, in our experience, ask again at every renewal rather than only at the first placement.
A surplus lines premium tax plus, in many states, a stamping fee — both set by state law and collected through the licensed surplus lines broker, who the National Association of Insurance Commissioners describes as responsible for remitting the tax to the home state. Rates vary by state, so the number belongs in your written quote rather than in a general article. Ask for premium, tax, and fees itemized separately before you bind.
Usually not from a single primary policy in this class. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, citing a market report, notes that most insurers offer one million dollars per occurrence and two million dollars aggregate on general liability, property damage, and product liability while insureds may need five million, ten million, or more — which means the extra limit has to be built as an excess layer. The operator program Anvo accesses tops out at one million per occurrence and two million aggregate on premises and products liability, so if a lease or license condition demands more, plan the excess layer as part of the original placement.
Not automatically, but in our experience it changes which market can look at it and what the submission has to prove. Butane or propane extraction is commonly classified as a Class I Division 1 hazardous-location occupancy with its own electrical and engineering requirements, and it is commonly treated as a separate class from the rest of cannabis. On the excess and surplus lines program Anvo accesses, combustible extraction manufacturers are a named eligible class — so the practical task is documenting the extraction method, booth or room certification, and controls rather than assuming a decline.
Yes, but as a lessor's risk only placement rather than under an operator policy, and often not with the carrier that insures the rest of your portfolio. The cannabis-tenant program Anvo accesses covers building, ordinance or law, and business personal property up to fifty thousand dollars per building, bounded by five million dollars total insured value, thirty-five thousand square feet, three stories, and no more than thirty percent vacancy, and it excludes several tenant operations outright including consumption lounges. If a rent stream is at stake, discuss business interruption and loss of rents explicitly rather than assuming it follows the property limit.
Commonly not — the vehicle liability and the cargo are two different questions, and cannabis cargo is frequently excluded even where the auto liability is intact. Read the cargo exclusions on the actual policy rather than relying on the declarations page, and if product moves, price cargo cover deliberately. Transport-led operations often fit better through a fleet-oriented placement than through a packaged operator program; see our wholesale distribution page for the goods-in-transit picture more generally.
Sometimes not — consultants, software vendors, security firms, and packaging suppliers that never handle product can often be placed in the standard market. But the National Association of Insurance Commissioners lists ancillary services among the areas where coverage gaps remain, and in our experience the classification is fragile: the moment product moves through your hands or your building, expect to be re-underwritten. Technology and data-heavy ancillary firms should also look at cyber liability separately, since seed-to-sale tracking systems hold regulated data.
Because in this class there is often nothing to shop against. Where the admitted market broadly declines a class, competition among appetites is not available and the useful work moves upstream into qualifying your operation against a small number of specialty envelopes. That is how Anvo approaches it — a fast, specific eligibility answer first, then placement — and it is a different service from the multi-quote comparison you would expect on a standard commercial risk.
Not sure whether your cannabis operation is eligible for any market at all?
Ask which attributes of an operation decide eligibility, and what an excess and surplus lines placement changes about your policy.
Find out which markets can look at your cannabis operation
Send us your state, license type, square footage, and total insured value and we will tell you which markets can look at your operation — and, just as usefully, which cannot.