How Cannabis Businesses Can Find Banking and Insurance Services

How Cannabis Businesses Can Find Banking and Insurance Services

With apologies to Ben Franklin and others, almost nothing is extra specific if you operate a hashish organization than your need for obtain to banking services and insurance policies (FWIW, the death and taxes part is in all probability also the case). This is real (1) as a realistic issue and (2) usually a authorized requirement. 

The Challenge

Virtually, cannabis operators want a put to deposit and preserve dollars and need to insure the business enterprise. Right after all, the hashish market continues to be a largely funds small business, and any one working a organization needs to have numerous levels of insurance policies to secure versus the worst circumstance state of affairs.

And as a legal make any difference, several states require insurance coverage as a prerequisite for hashish operators. For example, Alabama’s new health care cannabis law necessitates “[a] letter of motivation or other acknowledgement…of the applicant’s potential to secure a general performance bond issued by a surety insurance policies company accepted by the fee in the total of two million dollars”  (Ala. Code § 20-2A-67(d)).

But in just one of the lots of cruel twists of destiny in the cannabis market, operators are normally unable to easily entry the two items they are necessary to have. Most of the biggest and well-known financial institutions and insurance providers will not deliver products and services to hashish-relevant firms, especially people companies investing in marijuana. As we recently wrote, the motives differ from revenue-laundering problems to reputational challenges to institutional inertia. 

The Resolution

Would-be hashish operators needn’t despair. There are financial institutions and insurance policy vendors that will offer providers to hashish corporations. To be certain, most banking companies and insurance policies providers are not but providing providers to the cannabis sector. But there are a rising number of this kind of suppliers. Bradley’s cannabis legal professionals routinely make introductions to banking and insurance coverage suppliers on behalf of our clientele.

Would-be hashish operators should give terrific consideration to the want for banking expert services and coverage, each for practical and (often) authorized explanations. And it is nearly never ever too soon to start off to lookup for all those companies, as the course of action invariably normally takes for a longer time than it would for a non-hashish enterprise. So probably the final concept is to be diligent but not fearful – and to call us.


© 2022 Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP
National Law Evaluation, Volume XII, Quantity 195