X-Message-Number: 2310 From: whscad1!kqb (Kevin Q Brown +1 201 386 7344) Subject: CRYONICS Life Insurance Ratings Cryonic suspension usually is financed with life insurance, but determining what is a good policy and what is a good insurer is not an easy task. To help with that, you may want to read the July 1993 issue of Consumer Reports, which has the first of their three reports evaluating life insurance. Of course, they do not have in mind funding for cryonic suspension, so their criteria for good life insurance differ somewhat from ours. Nevertheless, they provide some useful background information on the life insurance industry. In particular, their roundup of the ratings agencies is worthwhile reading. They point out that, in recent years, failing insurance companies often were not downgraded quickly enough by some of the ratings agencies. For example, only Weiss predicted that Executive Life and Mutual Benefit would fail. If, after reading the Consumer Reports article, you would like to get current ratings of insurance companies, here are the phone numbers and prices I obtained recently at my local library: Bests (900) 420-0400 $6.00 per rating / $15.00 for detailed rating Moodys (212) 553-1653 Free - limit of 3 ratings per call S&P (212) 208-1527 Free - limit of 3 ratings per call Weiss (800) 289-9222 $15.00 per rating / $45. for detailed rating Duff & Phelps (312) 368-3157 Free - limit of one rating per call Please let me know if any of this information is out-of-date. Kevin Q. Brown Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2310