Do I need a safe for my Marijuana business?

Do you need a safe? If you are not insuring your products for theft then the insurance company does not require an 800lb safe with a one hour fire rated bolted to the ground. The underwriters came upon this size after studying years of robberies of Cannabis stores. A safe’s job is to slow down the bad guys. Are all safe’s created equal? Here is a quick educational video. https://youtu.be/ltK-bDbADa8 . Just because a safe’s door looks big, doesn’t mean it keeps your products safer. There are a lot out there that have skinny metal and sheetrock.

In Washington State, I talk with Dave Giussi about quality safes. He is the owner of Graffunder Safe and Vault and understands the industry. I would not feel comfortable with $500,000 worth of concentrates being stored overnight behind just sheet metal in a locking file cabinet. Contact Dave if you want good protection for your products.

Here is why a safe is bolted to the ground: https://youtu.be/B8ViUdd-2LM

Another box store safe: https://youtu.be/BjHnklj6PAs

Products Liablity & Marijuana Insurance

Products Liability is a huge question for a business owner in today’s market. Yes, it is expensive however with the average cost of defense running at $500,000, it becomes smart money. Recalls and lawsuits are expensive. Yes, there are cases that are cheaper and plenty that are more expensive. As you are thinking of protecting your investment, think of how many product recalls occur in the US on a weekly basis. Did you know that there are websites dedicated to this? Most of us have received at least one notice in the mail concerning our cars. Why would we think that a fast moving industry such as the marijuana industry would be different?

If you are a dispensary or a retail store then you should consider adding it to your store’s insurance package. When there is a suit, everyone possible gets named and it usually takes a lawyer, money and time to get untangled from a lawsuit. Our first run in with this was the Mirth Soda in three of the legal stores in Washington State. Who do you think would be named in a lawsuit if a bottle exploded in a customer’s hands?

If you sell Vape Pens and do not have Product’s liability then you are in a risky situation. The batteries can catch fire and the US Department of Transportation has limited them on flights in the US. There have been instances where Vape Pens have exploded. Be a Captain of Industry and know every step of production underneath your operation. By understanding where your products come from and how they are insured/treated only promotes your long term success.

Grower and processors, the first chance that you can cover your products, cover them. The Marijuana industry came out of the shadows with little regulation and oversight. Do you follow good manufacturing procedures? When was the last time you checked the chemical list for banned substances? Is your equipment being cleaned between runs of different growers or are you blending products? Being careful also includes being careful about what you bring in to your product stream.

There have been policies that I have refused to sell because of clauses against Cannabis/Marijuana’s product liability. A client buying a product has an expecation of the product being safe and if they find out otherwise then you are looking down the wrong end of a lawsuit. You never know who is going to try to take a short cut below you on your product stream and you don’t know how someone is going to use your product when you sell it. If you want to protect your business then you have product liability.

Mini Marijuana Pumpkin Pie Recipe

It’s Thanksgiving and you have smoked your turkey and now it is time to get baked with your four closest buds. What better way to do it than with a tiny pie? This recipe makes four mini pumpkin pies and remembers, you can always adjust the amount of cannabis you put in according to your tolerance level.

Ingredients:
Crust
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons vegetable shortening
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 to 6 tablespoons ice water

Filling:
1 can (14 or 15 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 can (14 ounces) pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 gram finely ground hash or kief
2 large eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ginger

Crust:
Treat them like you are Dexter, chop the butter and the shortening in to small chunks and place it in the freezer for 15 minutes.
While the butter is getting cold, toss in the sugar, flour, and salt in a food processor and blend everything together.
Add in the cold butter/shortening mix and pulse until everything is looks like a bunch of crumbs.
Take the mixture out of the food processor and put in to a large mixing bowl.
Add in the ice water and mix together with your hands until it balls up and is a little wet.
Pat the dough in to a disk and wrap it with plastic wrap, carefully setting it in the fridge for about 20 minutes before removing it and rolling. Cut the dough into quarters.
Take a quarter and place it on a piece of wax paper and sprinkle it with flour. Cover it with another piece of wax paper and use a rolling pin to roll the dough in to a circle to form your mini pie crust.
Put your rolled crust in to a pie pan and press the edges in firmly to make your pie forms correctly. Place the crusts in the freezer to harden while you now make the crust.
PRO TIP: If you don’t have tiny pie tins then use a muffin pan! Multi-tasker is good.

The Filling:
Take a large mixing bowl and beat the eggs with a mixer until they’re frothy.
Add in the pumpkin, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, hash/kief, vanilla, cloves, sweetened condensed milk, and ginger.
Beat everything until it’s well combined.
Pour the mixture in to the prepared crusts that you have ready and bake them for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees. (Small pies make for quicker baking).
Check their centers with a toothpick and if they come away clean, the pies are ready. If not, continue to check them at 5 minute intervals until the toothpick comes out clean.

Share and enjoy.

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Can my kids get poisened from Halloween candy?

Happy Halloween!! As a dad and a professional in the Cannabis Insurance Industry, I get a flood of scary things about the creepy neighbor down the street poisoning my 9 year old. Last year it was from the newly licensed Recreational Marijuana Stores in Washington and Colorado. It appears to have dropped off the social media darling list for now but I think that the week is just starting.

We have Police Department.
We have Forbes.
Snopes talks about it.
Wikipedia talks about it.

Let’s skip beyond the obvious that Edibles can be expensive or who would think of doing that to a kid doing Trick-Or-Treating. How many kids have been poisoned over the years from Halloween?

I am going to go with a Professional, Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware who specializes in candy tampering legends. Best looked into all the newspapers published between 1958 to 1983 and found fewer than 90 instances that might have qualified for actual candy tampering. Of those, he found five child deaths initially thought to be caused by homicidal strangers but none were investigated. For example, one was a child eating uncle’s heroin stash. A child is more likely to be injured by being struck by a car than finding candy laced by strangers.

So when Halloween rolls around have fun. Send the kids Trick-or-Treating making sure that they can see and be seen. Check the candy for anything damaged. Have fun because the odds are favor that you will get sicker from all the sugar than anything drug laced. Don’t believe the hype and have fun. If you want to talk about insuring a Cannabis business then give me a call.

Lloyds and Marijuana Insurance

I get questions about Lloyds and Insuring the Cannabis Industry on a regular basis. It can be from a new client in Colorado to an old one in Washington asking about renewals. (The two questions that I have had this week).

There are actually quite a few articles on the subject talking about how horrible this event is however I have found the experience refreshingly old school. I tend to refer people to industry Articles about Lloyds leaving the business.

Today was the first time that I got a hard copy letter from the carrier stating the end of Lloyd’s and Marijuana Insurance. Check it out:

It had little effect for my clients because the previous February, I switched over to Hannover as a primary carrier. I work with multiple companies. It is an ongoing process to see what company can do for different categories of clients. I have literally told client’s if they find a company that is better than the one I am using then let me know as I am more than happy to add on to my offering.

Insurance has always been about the customer. Picking good insurance involves picking a good broker.

Having your business survive a Wildfire.

I started fielding calls last night for the latest round of Wildfires in Eastern Washington. With high winds, draught conditions and lightning strikes it made for a long night. Some of the best growers in the state are in remote areas that property coverage when possible is costly. With the trends of the last couple of years, the price of fire insurance for property will continue to rise. Insurance is to get you able to rebuild. Yes, it can be costly however do you want to start from zero or do you want to have money to rebuild?

One of the first things that I talk about is defendable space. Clearing brush and barren roads help reduce the chances of fire jumping. There are plants that resist wildfire better than others. Remember it is only a reduction. Keep sprinklers running to reduce flare ups on your outdoor crops. Last night was a grim reminder no barrier is 100% effective as we had fire jump the Columbia River. At almost a mile across, residents consider it one of the best barriers for fire and it failed. If you are ordered to evacuate then get out.

The major issue for remote location is power. You cannot run your fans or your pumps with no power. Some of my guys favor small generators but quite a few are on solar. I am taking out my Teardrop trailer today. It has a 135 Watt panel on top and with an inverter; I can run a large portion of a client’s farm. The lack of power left large portions of last year vulnerable during last year’s season.

Lastly, if your crops get hit by the fire retardant, rinse off as soon as possible or else your plants’ leaves will burn. It can stain paint and discolor metal. Don’t let pets drink from puddles.

Good luck out there and stay safe.

Myth: Marijuana Insurance is not consumer friendly....

You can shop for Insurance for your Marijuana Business, however the approach is different. Most people are used to getting insurance for their home or auto. There is an Independent Agents, Farmers, All State, Progressive, etc… on every corner and if you go to the internet more choices. You can have a dozen different quotes from five companies in under an hour. What happens when all those different choices have only three Companies to choose from?

You create Jam and not in a tasty, good way. It wastes your valuable time as a business owner and it can cost you money. If you want to minimize your efforts and maximize your results for insurance then this is how you do it:

You shop for the broker. Yes, you want to apply some old school methods and build a relationship. By spending five minutes with three or four different brokers, you can save you self a lot of headache and your business a lot money. Here are some questions to ask:

1. How well do you support the Cannabis Industry? Are they a member of a trade association? (Look for someone that invests into your industry instead of extracting from it.)
2. Is this a normal product line? Does the agency have people dedicated to it or do they do one or two policies a year? (You are looking for someone that has current knowledge of the industry.)
3. How many companies do you work with? Are they directly connected to a whole sale insurance company or do they go through multiple brokers? (Insurance companies can add fees pay attention to the quotes as fees must be spelled out what dollars is going where).
4. Do they bring anything else to the table? Can they help with Health Insurance or insuring your transportation vehicles? Do they know Finance Companies? (A broker that has successfully worked the Marijuana Industry will have valuable contacts and resources that can improve your business.)
5. Do you have discounts? (Yes, there are a few of us that have discounts available).
Yes, I do get quick requests of ‘send me an app’ or how much for ‘$1 million in liability’. If you want a inexpensive policy that covers what you think it covers then spend the five minutes and talk with your Broker. Ask your current broker a few of those questions. You are a business owner, shop for a broker throughout the year.

You can always make the change in the quoting process or that 30 day renewal time. The broker of record letter looks like the following.

It is no big deal to get the policy that you want for your Marijuana business, at a good price. Just go a little old school and shop the broker not the policy. If you send a request to my website, I do ask questions.

Washington, Oregon, Colorado and California; what do they have in Common?

I think that I am done expanding for the season. After years of working in Washington State and having countless requests, I added Oregon, California and Colorado. If you are in another state, talk to me as it costs several hundred dollars and time to add a state. I don’t want to be adding fees and I like keeping the client’s costs low.

The Marijuana Industry and the Insurance Industry has a fascinating relationship. Insurance rates are built on history and known information whereas Marijuana and the Cannabis Industry is new and rapidly changing not everything is known.

For example back in May, Tom Bolt wrote to the U.S. Syndicates that Lloyds of London will no longer support insuring marijuana operations. Like an old security blanket, tossed in the corner by a growing child we had different companies to work with.

For our agency, it was no big deal as our whole sale company shifted carriers back in February to a product that the clients are enjoying. As retail insurance professional, I work maintain professional relationships with different whole sale companies to find products that suit my client’s needs. It is like going to your favorite restaurant, the specials change from Shrimp Salad to a New York Steak.

There are times that a whole sale company will reject part or a whole application due to risk. One of the more common rejections is covering property because of high fire risk. Be honest, not every company covers every risk and by hiding something when a claim arises, an insurance company could deny payment.

There are a few other agencies that work in the marijuana industry to various degrees. Some agents may be working with a whole sale broker that is going through another whole sale broker which adds fees. Some maybe doing one or two policies a year and not know what a BHO process or how Products Liability Coverage can impact your Vape Line that you are carrying.

The old rule of shop the agent and not the policy holds true. If you assume that Insurance is all the same and run out and attempt to get several different quotes to educate yourself on price then you are creating unnecessary problems. By shopping for price, you are pulling a slot machine lever hopping to match up a policy, good coverages with a good agent. Don’t gamble on you and your business’s future and check us out today.