Contributed by Ashlin Hadden, Founder of Essence Protection.

Let’s get the awkward part out of the way.

Most carriers see the words “sexual wellness” on an application and decline before they finish reading. Not because you did anything wrong. Because it is easier to say no than to understand your business.

I have spent over 10 years saying yes to the businesses everyone else hangs up on. This column is where I tell you what they won’t.

The No You Got Was Not About You

When a carrier declines you, it feels like a verdict. Like somebody looked at your brand, your products, and your years of clean operations and decided YOU were a problem.

That is almost never what happened. What happened is a carve-out.

Somewhere in a carrier’s underwriting guidelines there is a line that excludes an entire product class. Not your product. The whole category. A body safe, medical grade product with full testing records and a mystery item with no paperwork get the same answer, because nobody at that desk is paid to know the difference.

So you get a no. Or worse, you get a yes with an exclusion buried deep in the policy that removes the exact thing you sell.

Meanwhile, the rest of the business world piles on. Processors drop accounts without warning. Ad platforms ban products sitting on the shelf at national pharmacies. Banks ask questions they would never ask a shoe company. You learn to expect the no.

I would like to retire that expectation.

Why I do This

I started as a captive agent at a big agency. One carrier, one product, one price. I watched clients I worked hard to win walk out the door because I had nothing else to offer them. So I left and built an independent brokerage where I could actually give people choices.

Over time I learned the most important work was in the businesses mainstream brokers avoid. Carriers draw a line around an entire industry, and legitimate companies get stranded on the wrong side of it. Essence Protection exists for this industry specifically. Brands, retailers, boutiques, spas, in home party girls and therapists. If you touch sexual wellness, I built this for YOU.

What This Column Will Be

Every month I will take one thing the insurance world makes confusing and make it plain. Exclusions. Certificates. Product liability. What your lease actually requires. What your retail partners and trade show mean when they ask for proof of insurance.

No jargon for the sake of jargon. No scare tactics. And no jokes about your products.

You have heard all of them, from people who were not nearly as funny as they thought.

The “Ten Minute” Fix

Pull out your current policy. Not the certificate, the actual policy. Search the exclusions for three words: adult, sexual, and novelty. If any of them show up, read that paragraph twice. There is a real chance your coverage stops exactly where your inventory starts.

Can’t find your policy? That is your first problem, and it is an easy one to fix. Call your agent.

Your Turn… Introducing “Ask Ashlin”

Send me the question you have been too embarrassed to ask your current agent. I promise I have heard stranger ones! The best one each month gets answered here, no names attached.

Word of The Month: Carve-Out 

Definition of Carve-Out | When a carrier removes a specific risk or product class from coverage. It looks like one small paragraph. It can quietly erase the reason you bought the policy.

Up Next Month: Your biggest quarter is also your least protected one, and it has almost nothing to do with theft. 

Ashlin Hadden is the founder of Essence Protection, specialty insurance for the sexual wellness, pleasure product, and adult retail industry. She has spent 15 years in insurance, is licensed in all 50 states, and places coverage in both the admitted and surplus lines markets. Have a question for Ask Ashlin? Send it in at ashlin@ashlinhaddeninsurance.com and include in the subject line “STIMULATE Question”.