X-Message-Number: 2972
Date:  Tue, 09 Aug 94 14:56:25 
From: Steve Bridge <>
Subject:  CRYONICS and life insurance

To CryoNet
>From Steve Bridge, President
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
August 9, 1994

Re:     Message: #2968 - Cryonics Fees and Insurance Rates
        Date: Sun, 7 Aug 1994 22:49:20 -0700 (PDT)
        From: Marty Nemko <>

>It would seem that, to be fair, cryonics association annual fees, like
>insurance premiums, should be different for a 40 yearold in good health
>than for an 85-year old with terminal cancer, yet the annual fee charged
>by cryonics organizations is the same.  Mike Darwin says that this is
>because only insurance companies can charge variable rates.  If movie
>theaters and restaurants can charge different amounts based on age, why
>not cryonics organizations?

     Because the actual service to be performed at a restaurant does not 
depend on the customer to die.  Higher cryonics rates for an 85-year-old 
would be implemented because we expect him to die sooner.  It is not "age-
dependent;" it is "predicted-life-span-dependent."  That seems to bring 
the policy under insurance laws.

     Remember that senior citizens are charged LESS at restaurants because 
of their age, not more.  In a sense, we can reward people for getting 
close to the end of life but we can't charge them more for it.  In fact, 
Alcor does give discounts to children, full-time students, and additional 
family members.  But even these are based on economic considerations, not 
on life-span.

     Note that this says nothing about what might be fair or moral or 
practical.  It is hard enough to fit cryonics under the current set of
laws which impinge on what we do.  Adding the entire field of insurance
law into the mix would be a nightmare without providing equal benefits.

>Mike raised a related point.  If cryonics organizations WERE to become an
>insurance company (e.g., if all the organizations banded together so they
>could come up with the necessary money to do so), cryonics organizations
>could provide the insurance for all its members, thereby eliminating the
>huge profits insurance companies make on the life insurance policies that
>most members must buy to pay for their suspensions and long-term care.

     Last year I played with some very general figures on this.  There are 
currently only about 600 fully signed-up cryonicists in the world -- 
TOTAL -- divided among six organizations.  Many of them would not switch 
their funding if cryonics companies became or owned an insurance company.  
An insurance company which only sold cryonics insurance would have to have 
capitalization of several million dollars and have several thousand policy 
holders in order to survive the payouts which would take place in the 
first few years.  And that doesn't include the attorneys, computers, 
office workers, etc.  Insurance companies do not make HUGE profits on each 
policy; they make large profits because they sell a LOT of insurance -- 
*tens of millions of policies*.   The larger they get (up to a point), the 
more efficient they become.  An extremely small insurance company would be 
very inefficient and would have to charge higher rates than you might 
think.

     I'm afraid we're going to have to endure capitalism for a long time 
yet.  In the long run, it probably works best anyway.  

Steve Bridge

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2972