Insurers force change on police departments long resistant to it

[LetMyPeopleVote]

I was wondering when this would happen. I kept seeing large settlements in lawsuits due to police actions and was wondering when the insurance companies would start stepping in. It is nice to see that insurance companies are forcing some police departments to stop acting recklessly

Link to tweet

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/police-misconduct-insurance-settlements-reform/?tid=ss_tw

Undeterred, St. Ann Police Chief Aaron Jimenez stood behind the high-octane pursuits and doubled down on the department’s decades-old motto: “St. Ann will chase you until the wheels fall off.”

Then, an otherwise silent stakeholder stepped in. The St. Louis Area Insurance Trust risk pool — which provided liability coverage to the city of St. Ann and the police department — threatened to cancel coverage if the department didn’t impose restrictions on its use of police chases. City officials shopped around for alternative coverage but soon learned that costs would nearly double if they did not agree to their insurer’s demands.

Jimenez’s attitude swiftly shifted: In 2019, 18 months after the chase that left Cox permanently disabled, the chief and his 48-member department agreed to ban high-speed pursuits for traffic infractions and minor, nonviolent crimes.

“I didn’t really have a choice,” Jimenez said in an interview. “If I didn’t do it, the insurance rates were going to go way up. I was going to have to lose 10 officers to pay for it.”

Where community activists, use-of-force victims and city officials have failed to persuade police departments to change dangerous and sometimes deadly policing practices, insurers are successfully dictating changes to tactics and policies, mostly at small to medium-size departments throughout the nation.

[RainCaster]

1. Insurance can mean changes where nothing else has worked

I'm thinking about gun control here. If everyone is required to have liability insurance, the next step is high premiums for those with massive collections of assault rifles.

[orthoclad]

2. And also climate-change measures

Insurers are getting tired of paying out for catastrophes, which will onky keep getting worse.