There are some downsides to the taxpayers under the private-insurance model. Assuming police are already paid about as little as we can get away with paying them, their salaries would have to increase by the average insurance premium. Over the long term, this should be equal to about 1.2x the awarded payouts. Assuming insurance company profit would be de jure capped at 20%, which happens for health insurance and auto insurance in some states - if the insurance company accidentally makes more profit they issue rebates to customers to bring down profits to the maximum level. So it could be argued that taxpayers would end up paying 20% more. But there’s some additional nuance which may lead to upsides for taxpayers wallets:
1) When a repeatedly problematic officer sees their premiums raised a lot, they’ll likely leave the profession. Removing the most egregious repeat-offenders will most likely lower the taxpayer’s bills.
2) Taxpayers in areas with sudden high judgments against them will be somewhat subsidized by taxpayers in other areas. This at least doesn’t suddenly victimize the taxpayers in areas where they are already victimized by police.
3) Police might be afraid of higher premiums, and change their practices to avoid judgements - thus lowering the taxpayer burden.
Any changes in how police do their jobs to avoid higher premiums could have positive or negative externalities.
- Would certain officers in the “in-group” get assigned lower-risk work and bank more take-home due to lower premiums, and others would be discriminated against by being assigned high-risk patrol areas and face higher premiums either as a result of their specific assigned duties or as a result of occasional interactions that are more likely to occur in those areas?
- Would police officers be even more hesitant to rush into Uvalde High than they already are to stop active shooters?
- Will police officers learn new techniques that are equally or more effective at reducing crime than current abuse-of-power techniques, or will they just avoid policing as much as they can to minimize the risk to their premiums and give criminals a permissive environment to operate in?
Ideally we want to find a way to incentivize professional, courteous, AND effective policing to get the most value from tax-payers dollars. Many people believe courteous policing leads to effective policing, and many people believe the opposite (that more extreme / “rough” policing leads to more effective crime-reduction). For that reason alone I think it might be difficult to get private insurance requirements enacted.
But I do think most people can agree that IF it’s possible to have courteous AND effective policing at the same time, that would be ideal.