The police departments and cities already provide a kind of self-insurance. They're the ones who have to pay the lawsuits. They're already in a position to wan

The police departments and cities already provide a kind of self-insurance. They're the ones who have to pay the lawsuits. They're already in a position to want to keep good officers and reject bad ones -- and to lower the salaries of ones that they think will cost them. Too often, they don't exercise that power. There are many reasons for that, usually complicated and political. I suppose shifting the responsibility to an insurance company could potentially change the political stakes. But I'm not sure if any insurance company wants responsibility for firing/pricing-out officers they think are bad. They'd need access to close supervision, and I don't know if the police departments would want to grant that kind of supervision from somebody who isn't even an elected body.