X-Message-Number: 14815
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 18:54:08 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: re Alcor's foreign membership

Hi everyone!

About Kirschner's message:

Although I am a US citizen (now living overseas) and carry only US
life insurance, the insurance problem faced by Kirschner should not be
simply ignored. If Alcor is to grow, it should try to grow internationally,
and that means it should be willing to accept foreign members.

The major fault of Alcor in this issue is that it hasn't decided to let
THE FOREIGN MEMBERS do the work to show that their life insurance policy
will pay up when needed. Yes, Alcor may wish to verify any letters etc
sent by the foreign life insurance company, but this is far less work
than doing the job directly from an address which is not in the country
in question.

The US, too, has shonky life insurance companies. Moreover, if you get
your insurance when relatively young, and need it decades later, what
once was a good life insurance company may have changed into a shonky
one. Not only that, but if that happens you could easily be in a situation
in which you could not get new life insurance because you've developed
a condition (which you did not have originally) which makes you hard
or impossible to insure.

This point is a major one. I will not get involved in the dispute
as to how much, if any, Alcor was at fault in the way it dealt with
Kirschner... although I do think Alcor might have done a little more
than it did rather than simply turning him into a nonmember. Phones,
fax, and email all work between the US and Germany... though I've
noticed since living in the US that far fewer banks (or PEOPLE) 
really deal with foreign countries as casually as those based overseas.

		Best and long long life to all,

			Thomas Donaldson

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