X-Message-Number: 3008
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: CRYONICS: re insurance
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 1994 20:27:14 -0700 (PDT)

Hi!

A bit of history about English companies and insurance for remote standby.
At one time, when I was living in Australia and did not have the savings needed
to pay for it myself, I spent some time negotiating with a Lloyd's of London
broker to pay remote standby insurance. After a lot of work we did come up
with a contract, and I kept it in force for several years. This would have
been about 1976 or so (I keep all my old records and could give a better
date, but would have to brush a lot of dust off to work that out. The date is
my best guess). As I recall, the brokers who accepted this insurance were
Crawley and Warren --- but I'd be surprised if that same organization still
exists now.

I eventually discontinued this insurance because it was much more expensive
per dollar paid out than straight life insurance, and I came to have the
savings to support remote standby directly (if it weren't TOO large).
Furthermore, as readers may have noticed, Lloyd's of London itself has fallen
on bad times and would not be so friendly to such a proposal now.

It IS possible to insure Remote Standby. But anyone who tries it should know
that it will be EXPENSIVE. Ordinary life insurance, paying off once you die,
is much easier to get. And Lloyd's of London, when I dealt with them, put
themselves out as willing to insure anything so long as some valid objective
criteria describing the event could be agreed upon.

I am putting this experience into the pot for those thinking about insurance
to mull over. There is even more to be said: cryonics societies legally 
cannot set themselves up as insurance companies (not enough capital). One
reason put about to account for the very small number of people who make
arrangements in advance has been simply that (if you are 25) you can expect
to pay society dues for 45 years or more before you will need suspension.
An obvious way to change that problem would be to make dues for members
depend on their age when they joined. But NO! That turned out to be legally
impossible then, and so far as I know it remains legally impossible. I'm
not referring here to a cryonics society even providing insurance, but 
simply to the dues members must pay to remain members; as we all know, it
is a flat rate which does not depend on age.

			Long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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