X-Message-Number: 27939 From: Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 08:47:54 EDT Subject: Funding minimums clarified, for Alan and others, and bonus rant! In a message dated 5/16/2006 5:00:41 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, writes: $200,000? This must refer to Alcor. CI charges only $28,000 plus local preparation and shipping (about $5,000 in the US, doubtless a bit more from Europe), while suggesting a larger payment may help with research and resurection costs. But something like $40,000 should surely be enough. Alan Mole Hello, Alan and fellow Cryoneters, The face amount of $200,000 specified above is a requirement of the LIFE INSURANCE carriers for non US based cryonauts and clients. This is a fact irrespective of the cryonics vendor used and their costs. It is non-negotiable, as are other requirements listed on the website for non US folks who want to obtain a cryonics friendly life insurance policy. The "extra" amount of coverage can be specified to go to the cryonics vendor as a donation, fund an individual cryonics trust and/or the individual "Lichtenstein Reanimation Foundation", provide for family members and loved ones, and do what life insurance generally does, which is help replace the INCOME lost when an responsible human being "dies." (I personally own about 2.3 MILLION dollars of coverage...not because I am rich, (dadgummit) but because l care about my wife and cryonics arrangements.) So, it is worth noting, that even in the US, if one is signed up as an option "2" member with CI and wants to use life insurance to fund the costs of SUSPENDED ANIMATION, INC. for STANDBY and CRYOTRANSPORT, here is the EXACT amount of life insurance required if you live in the US: $95,000 This represents 35,000 to CI and 60,000 to SA. (Because of contractual arrangements designed to protect both vendors in the event of a standby resulting in costs incurred but not suspension, the actual beneficiary designations are $65,000 to CI, $30,000 to SA.) The above data is accurate, timely, correct, and taken directly from information received from Andy Zawacki and Ben Best at the Cryonics Institute. As I write this I am looking at an email from Andy Z. dated 3/3/2006 summarizing the actual cost of CI if you want Suspended Animation services. The amount of time spent clarifying this seemingly simple information, getting it right, has been counterintuitively large. I have been astonished at the people who are signing up with CI, however, and do NOT know the above. They want the technological and medical expertise of Suspended Animation, Inc., and want to fund this with life insurance. But it is ridiculously difficult to get the straightforward data on funding costs from the CI website. The CI website refers to the 28,000 or 35,000 for option one or two members, then suggests an extra 4 or 5 thousand for local mortician services and transport. It IS possible to get the above correct information from the CI website, but the "legacy" information showing really low funding minimums continues to confuse folks. The actual cost of SUSPENSION at CI is 28,000 or $35,000. But it would nice if you could get your body and brain to the site with a reasonably good suspension, timely transport, and protocols to preserve your sense of self and brain pattern. To do this, you are almost certainly going to want the folks at Suspended Animation to perform their services, which they are among the best in the world at doing. And if you fund this service with life insurance, as most cryonicists do, it is going to cost a total of $95,000 in almost all cases. Hope this helps. Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh or "ranty," but the willful ignorance of some cryonicists who think they can magically get high level medical services "on the cheap" has been a source of significant annoyance in the past. And it continues to be. This is the real world, stuff costs money, and good stuff, and good stuff and good services cost MORE money. It is my sincere wish that everyone reading these words who GETS a cryonic suspension get the absolute BEST POSSIBLE suspension. Many of the suspensions that have occurred at both CI and ALCOR over the years have been unnecessarily complicated by financial confusion and poorly planned financial and logistical arrangements. In at least some cases, this is just plain "stupid." And worse, when an individual has 24 or 48 hours of warm ischemia while funding and transportation protocols are confirmed, it makes cryonics look like a fraud and a scam. And this makes me mad as hell. And it ought to make YOU mad as hell. Because most people fund with life insurance, it simply is short sighted and small thinking and SILLY to pay SOME price for cryonic suspension. But not pay ENOUGH to get the best suspension current technology and proper funding can provide! Would you tell your heart surgeon to only do the absolute minimum and cheapest protocols on your impending heart surgery? Use the cheapest stents, materials, protocols, the least trained doctors and nurses, perhaps, Doc, you could find a recycled stent and save even more money? If you had cancer, would you explain to your oncologist that your primary consideration is not spending more than a few hundred dollars? You don't want the best treatment, you only want the cheapest. Folks, we are signed up for cryonics, or considering signing up, because we have reason to believe this is a LEGITIMATE medical and scientific and technological protocol to save our lives! This legitimate medical procedure is undermined and torpedoed when people don't make SERIOUS and ADEQUATE arrangements to handle their suspension protocols! And, if you slop this up by doing something really ignorant like making a secondary beneficiary someone who does not like cryonics, you have not just put YOUR life at risk. You put the whole practice of CRYONICS at risk. How many of you read the details of a CI suspension where someone who was in a position to NOT suspend the cryonicist also RECEIVED the money if the suspension did not take place? When it takes HOURS or DAYS to figure out your financing and protocols while your brain deteriorates, you did not do proper planning! You "screwed the pooch!" And you make the serious and emerging science of cryonics look like a fraud! Please, folks, let's be REAL about our arrangements. Don't leave the potential saving of your LIFE to luck, hope, or chance. Work with people who are competent and who care to NAIL the details. And please fund responsibly. For Centuries, Rudi Rudi Richard Hoffman CFP CLU Board Member Financial Planning Association fpafla.org Board Member Salvation Army salvationarmy.org Member Alcor Life Extension Foundation alcor.org Certified Financial Planner(TM) CFP Board of Standards Member Libertarian Party libertarianparty.org Member National Rifle Association nra.org Member World Transhumanist Association http://transhumanism.org/ World's Leading Cryonics Insurance Provider rudihoffman.com Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=27939