Insurance Crisis Upends $5 Billion California Cannabis Industry

Hannah Whyte is one of thousands of Californians who have struggled to insure their property in the event of wildfire.

Her 77-acre farm nestled deep in a wildfire-vulnerable forest lost its coverage from State Farm after the mountainous region burned six years ago, and she’s found herself excluded from the state-created insurer of last resort designed to protect the most vulnerable. She’s become uninsurable because of her crop: cannabis.

Hannah Whyte at her cannabis farm in Willow Creek, California.

Photographer: Jonah Reenders/Bloomberg

Whyte’s plight is becoming increasingly common for weed farmers in the Emerald Triangle, which includes Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity Counties, and has long been the epicenter of US cannabis ...