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CLAIM Act would create a safe harbor for insurers covering legal cannabis
The bill, introduced July 21, 2026, would bar federal agencies from penalizing insurers or landlords solely for covering or leasing to state-legal cannabis businesses.
A new Senate bill would limit federal enforcement against insurers that cover cannabis businesses operating legally under state law, aiming to reduce uncertainty created by the mismatch between state legalization and federal illegality, Insurance Business reports.
Introduced on July 21, 2026, S. 5049, the Clarifying Law Around Insurance of Marijuana Act, would create a federal safe harbor under which federal agencies may not prohibit, penalize, or discourage an insurer from covering a cannabis-related legitimate business. The definition would cover companies involved in cultivating, producing, selling, transporting, and dispensing cannabis in accordance with state law.
The proposal also restricts other supervisory actions, including barring regulators from cancelling or limiting an insurer's policies over its cannabis work, or pressing an insurer to drop a policyholder based solely on a cannabis owner, operator, or employee connection. It would further prevent adverse federal supervisory or corrective actions against landlords that lease to a cannabis business.
In addition, the bill would say an insurer and its officers, directors, and employees may not be held liable under federal law solely for insuring a cannabis business or reinvesting income from that business. It includes guardrails that would not require insurers to write cannabis coverage, would leave the McCarran-Ferguson Act and the Dodd-Frank Act intact, and would require a Comptroller General study on barriers minority-owned and women-owned cannabis businesses face in accessing financial services.