President Donald Trump’s choices over his first 50 days in office, including appointments to lead the federal drug and health agencies, are sowing serious doubts that marijuana’s status under federal law will change anytime soon. Will marijuana rescheduling happen under Trump? Industry’s doubts grow is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs
Colorado’s regulated marijuana market is riddled with unsafe and illegal hemp-derived THC, a flow that regulators are unable or unwilling to stop, a state-licensed cannabis company alleges in a lawsuit. Colorado regulators allowed hemp-derived THC into market, lawsuit says is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs
Health Canada has updated regulations governing the nation’s cannabis operators to address industry challenges while keeping intact public health and safety standards. Health Canada eases cannabis industry burden in regulations update is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs
Insurance is a crucial yet often overlooked pillar of the cannabis and psychedelic industries. As businesses navigate complex regulations, raise capital, and manage risk, securing proper coverage can make the difference between success and failure. In this episode of the Ganjapreneur Podcast, Joe Ziolkowski, CEO and founder of Relm Insurance, shares insights on the unique challenges cannabis and psychedelic companies face in the insurance market. With a background in alternative risk transfer and a focus on emerging industries, Joe has built Relm into a forward-thinking insurance provider willing to cover businesses that traditional insurers avoid. From the impact of federal policy changes to the role of radical transparency in securing investment, this conversation sheds light on a side of the industry few talk about—but all businesses need to understand. Listen to the episode below, or scroll down for the full transcript! Listen to the episode: Ganjapreneur · Joseph Ziolkowski: Navigating Insurance, Regulation & Risk in Cannabis Read the transcript: Editor’s note: this transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors. TG Branfalt: Hey there, I’m your host, TG Branfalt, and this is the ganjapreneur.com podcast where we try to bring you actionable information and normalized cannabis through the stories of ganjapreneurs, activists and industry stakeholders. Today I’m joined by Joe Ziolkowski. He’s the CEO and founder of Relm Insurance, which offers insurance for the cannabis and psychedelic industries. How are we doing this afternoon, Joe? Joe Ziolkowski: Awesome, TG, thanks so much for having me. Great to be here. TG Branfalt: I’m real stoked to get into what you do because I think it’s a very underlooked sort of portion of both the cannabis and emergent psychedelic industries. But before we get to that, man, tell me about yourself. How’d you end up serving the cannabis and psychedelic industries? How’d you get involved in insurance? Tell me the story, man. Joe Ziolkowski: Yeah, I mean, I’ll give you the quick and dirty version of it. Ultimately, I’ve been in the insurance industry for about 15 years, and fortunately I came into the insurance industry through, in hindsight, a specialized niche of the global insurance industry. I came into the insurance industry focusing on the alternative risk transfer side of the business. So without going too far into the details, the traditional insurance industry is massive. It’s global. It accounts for trillions of dollars of capital sitting on balance sheets of some of the biggest companies in the world. It accounts for trillions of dollars of premium that are paid by companies in 180 plus different countries. And the traditional insurance market encompasses a lot of traditional companies doing traditional things that yield traditional types of risks. But there are a portfolio of exposures and products that are very non-standard, and a lot of the companies that are looking for solutions or conclusions that just aren’t possible to achieve through the traditional insurance marketplace will turn to what’s called the alternative risk transfer sector, or this alternative aspect of the insurance and reinsurance industry where bespoke products are developed, capacity is created with, let’s say third party investor, capital insurance infrastructure and reinsurance infrastructure is set up to solve very specific and tailored problems. And if you look at the Fortune 1000, 90% of those companies are accessing products and solutions through the alternative insurance and reinsurance marketplace. And so that’s where I came into the insurance industry really in what I think is probably the most stimulating entry point to an industry that’s considered so boring and opaque by so many others. And I spent eight years just going through solution after solution and product development initiative after product development initiative, really getting I think a unique and super interesting perspective on how this industry works. TG Branfalt: So what drew you to it initially? Joe Ziolkowski: Yeah, I mean, I had a finance background and I was working for a real estate development company that needed an alternative solution to some of the bonding performance and payment bonding that they were required to secure for some of the projects they were working on. And I got exposure to the execution of this type of solution where they were essentially self-insuring, right, utilizing insurance infrastructure that they owned and controlled to finance those risks in a way that enabled them to keep a portion of the risk on their own kind of affiliated balance sheet and then access reinsurance on a wholesale basis. So the idea ultimately is instead of paying premium to an insurance company that you have no control over, no affiliation with, and you continue to do that year after year after year without filing any claims, that third party insurance company gets to keep the premium and all of the retained profits. In the alternative sense. You could use some of your own insurance or reinsurance infrastructure to retain some of those profits and investment income that would otherwise be kept by some insurance company you don’t own or control. And so I got exposure to that and realized how prevalent this type of solution is for a very specific set of companies doing some of the most sophisticated things in the world and then found myself in the insurance business. TG Branfalt: So this is obviously a, could we call it non-traditional sort of insurance? Absolutely. So how is this sort of a non-traditional model ensuring non-traditional businesses such as cannabis and psychedelics? Joe Ziolkowski: Well, so I think when you look at the types of risks or the types of companies that approach these non-standard solutions, they are companies in some instances, they’re companies doing new things. If you think about the way that the insurance industry works, it is a backwards looking industry by design. It takes a whole bunch of historical data about a particular type of loss, and it models that data millions of times to effectively predict the future. It’s taking all those historical loss incidences and forecasting the
Because 280E thwarts operational success, it greatly incentivizes people to perpetuate the illicit marijuana market. Dear Congress: 280E isn’t a tax break for cannabis companies is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs
Cannabis edibles maker Wana Brands has landed a deal in which its line of hemp-derived THC-infused beverages will be carried at Total Wine & More locations in nine states across the country. Wana Brands gets hemp-derived THC beverage line in Total Wine stores is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs
Maryland has a high demand cannabis market, but resctrictions and delays are keeping operators from thriving. Maryland’s high demand market undermined by restrictions, delays is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs
California will extend a band on hemp-derived THC products that was initially enacted by Governor Gavin Newsom. California extends hemp-derived THC ban is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs
Separate bills have been introduced in the Kansas legislature that would legalize medical and adult-use cannabis in one of the nation’s most restrictive states. Kansas introduces bills to legalize adult-use and medical marijuana is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs
Delaware cannabis industry stakeholders frustrated over continuing delays in getting the state’s recreational industry up-and-running are protesting in an effort to get things moving. Delaware cannabis licensees push state to let them open for business is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs
