cannabisnews.com: More Companies Insure for Medical Marijuana





More Companies Insure for Medical Marijuana
Posted by FoM on September 12, 1999 at 08:35:48 PT
By Seth Rosenfeld, San Francisco Examiner
Source: Detroit News
SAN FRANCISCOWhen 71-year-old Robert DeArkland discovered he had prostate cancer in addition to his sciatica and arthritis, he asked his psychiatrist to recommend marijuana to ease the pain.
But early one morning a few weeks after DeArkland bought 13 small pot plants from a medical marijuana club, sheriff's deputies broke down the door of his house, handcuffed him, seized the plants and charged him with cultivating pot for sale.   The Sacramento district attorney's office dismissed the charges against DeArkland and returned his growing equipment. The agents, however, had failed to water the baby pot plants, which shriveled and died.   So DeArkland, a retiree, filed a claim with his insurance firm and was reimbursed $6,500 for the pot under the part of his homeowner's policy that covers "trees, shrubs and other plants."   The case appears to be one of the nation's first known instances in which an insurer has paid for losses of medical marijuana. Earlier this year, in Seattle, where medical marijuana is legal, State Farm Insurance paid $3,500 to a man who was arrested after he reported that his medical marijuana was stolen.   The two experiences are apparently the only publicly known instances of insurance coverage for losses of medical marijuana. They underscore the unsettled nature of medical marijuana laws and how insurance firms are handling the unusual risks that police and criminals pose to their pot puffing clients.   The cases also suggest that adjusters will increasingly face the dilemma of setting the value of their clients' marijuana stashes, as they do with more mundane household items.   At least three insurers -- Farmers, CGU of Boston, and State Farm, the nation's largest home insurer, with 67 million policyholders -- will cover losses of medical marijuana, an informal Examiner survey found. Pubdate: September 12, 1999Copyright 1999, The Detroit NewsInsurer Pays Client on Pot Seizure - 9/07/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread2784.shtml
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