diff --git a/examples/cockroachdb/README.md b/examples/cockroachdb/README.md
index db5561f9657a..015939ffeac5 100644
--- a/examples/cockroachdb/README.md
+++ b/examples/cockroachdb/README.md
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ Start up a client pod and open up an interactive, (mostly) Postgres-flavor
 SQL shell using:
 
 ```console
-$ kubectl run -it --rm cockroach-client --image=cockroachdb/cockroach --restart=Never --command -- ./cockroach sql --host cockroachdb-public
+$ kubectl run -it --rm cockroach-client --image=cockroachdb/cockroach --restart=Never --command -- ./cockroach sql --host cockroachdb-public --insecure
 ```
 
 You can see example SQL statements for inserting and querying data in the
diff --git a/examples/cockroachdb/demo.sh b/examples/cockroachdb/demo.sh
index 8b3031fb2888..f96f54277d51 100755
--- a/examples/cockroachdb/demo.sh
+++ b/examples/cockroachdb/demo.sh
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ function sql() {
   # output?
   kubectl exec "cockroachdb-${1}" -- /cockroach/cockroach sql \
       --host "cockroachdb-${1}.cockroachdb" \
+      --insecure \
       -e "$(cat /dev/stdin)"
 }