Insurance Companies and Cannabis Use
Like everyone else, cannabis users and medical patients must consider harsh realities like life insurance as a way to give themselves and their loved ones piece of mind. Luckily, cannabis users are able to get health insurance from most companies without being classified as smokers.
According to the 2015 Association of Home Office Underwriters, 80 percent of underwriters say they take cannabis use into account when deciding whether to take on a client. However, 30 percent of those polled said that they don’t consider cannabis users to be smokers. This is important because being considered a smoker can make rates extremely high, or cause people to be denied health insurance.
However, while this is good news on the service, there is also a darker side to the story of life insurance and cannabis. In his report entitled “Marijuana: An Underwriting Perspective,” Gary Haddow, a consultant for Munich American, writes that cannabis use can be a red flag for underwriters that the users have an undiagnosed medical condition with which they treat medical cannabis.
“For those that are using marijuana for medicinal purposes, the reason it is being prescribed must be identified and the mortality and/or morbidity implications related to that impairment understood, as the risk may be uninsurable at the outset,” Haddow explains.
In addition to health problems, some are hesitant of uninsured cannabis users in illegal states because they run the risk of being killed by drug enforcement agents, or while committing crimes.
Like most other issues, life insurance for cannabis users will be helped greatly if the substance is fully legalized. Once that happens, there will be no reason to think cannabis users would be killed for being criminals, and all medical problems will be diagnosed, so that if a smoker simply medicates for a bad knee or anxiety, this will be made clear. The next few years will surely see a shift in how cannabis users are treated by insurance companies.
