Sure, and in the corporate world it's standard already - director's and officer's insurance covers criminal charges as well. Naturally deliberate criminal acts are excluded, but it'll cover you against the sort of accidents people can make when conducting business.
The government gets around this by ousting their target from their companies prior to laying criminal charges. Once the target no longer has control over their business, the new management can be pressured into dropping / denying the target's D&O coverage.
How can such insurance exclude deliberate criminal acts? Wouldn't it be impossible to determine if such an act had been committed at all, let alone deliberately, until the trial had concluded? If it turned out to be deliberate, what then, do they send you a bill for the lawyer's fees?
While I'm not an expert here (thank god), I believe D&O insurance is one of those things where the insurance companies pays after the fact, when you file a claim. So instead of sending you a bill for the lawyer's fees, they likely would just dispute your claim and not reimburse you.
Interesting, the article says many (presumably non-criminal) securities cases settle because companies are afraid an adverse judgement would void their D&O insurance. I wonder if anyone ever pleads nolo contendere in a plea bargain just to maintain D&O coverage.
The government gets around this by ousting their target from their companies prior to laying criminal charges. Once the target no longer has control over their business, the new management can be pressured into dropping / denying the target's D&O coverage.