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


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