I need insurance for my cannabis dispensary.

Dispensary and cultivation opening in Colorado.

Licenses approved, buildout about 75% done. Now I'm drowning in insurance quotes and having a mild panic attack.

Most insurers won't touch cannabis. The three that will gave me these:
Alliance Risk

• Did full site visit, grilled us on security and compliance
• Specialized in cannabis operations
• Seemed to actually understand the business

Cannasure ( cheaper)

• Mostly online process, lower coverage limits
• Cannabis-specific but felt kind of... basic?

CIS (highest)

• Best coverage on paper
• Very corporate, didn't seem to care about our specific setup

Here's what's keeping me up: 5K plants in flower, $400K-$600K inventory at any time, projecting $3.5M Year 1 revenue.

That means I'm paying 4-5% of revenue just for insurance before we even open the doors.
My biggest nightmare is fire or theft wiping out everything and the carrier finding some bullshit reason to deny the claim because we didn't check box 47 on page 12 of the compliance checklist.

Real questions:

• Is $145K-$167K actually normal for this size operation or am I getting hosed?
• Does cannabis insurance expertise actually matter or is coverage just coverage?
• Anyone dealt with actual claims? Which carriers actually paid out vs fought you?

Leaning toward Alliance Risk because they really understood compliance requirements, but it's still a lot of cash walking out the door.

Talk me off the ledge or tell me I'm right to be paranoid.