X-Message-Number: 9869 Date: Sun, 07 Jun 1998 12:26:26 +0100 From: (John de Rivaz) Subject: Re: Individual Trusts Jim Yount mentions the use of insurance products for estates under $300k. These products use a mass produced trust document to work. If produced for clients individually the cost of the single sheet of paper used by the insurance companies would be an appreciable fraction of the $300K or probably the whole amount of much smaller sums that may be available to many cryonicsts. Of course what the insurance companies do offer is security in numbers. If the millions of clients of a major insurance company were ripped off, then the government would have to do something in order to keep public order. If on the other hand the clients of a small organisation, such as a cryonics trust manager, lost their funds no one would lift a finger. However honest the managers, client "investors" "policyholders" or whatever you like to call them can still be ripped off as a result of litigation, financial manoevers such as takeovers and mergers and so on totally outside the control of management. An annuity is quite amazing in my view. It pays less than (or in the event of a highly impaired life) about the same that you can get from agressive equity investment if you are willing to sell some of the gains rather than rely on dividend income. Yet all the capital goes to the insurance company when the annuitant dies. (What I am saying is that if you have a successful investment strategy you may as well keep on with that as buy an annuity.) If it were possible for one individual or one organisation other than an insurance company to issue an annuity to another individual this would solve the problem of death taxes as well as probate. Unfortunately, as far as I can understand, the lawyers have got it wrapped up so this can't be done. (The British courts, so I have been told on numberous occasions, "set aside" such arrangements in favour of probate lawyers and administrators and death tax collectors - their word for denying their citizens freedom to this particular form of contract.) Also anyone considering a private annuity still has to consider the safety aspect mentioned above. The problem with all of this is that people are being asked to "put all their eggs in one basket". Normally financial security is acheived by diversity, of classes of investment, managers (if any), and individual units with classes (eg different stocks). -- Sincerely, * Longevity Report: http://www.longevb.demon.co.uk/lr.htm John de Rivaz * Fractal Report: http://www.longevb.demon.co.uk/fr.htm **************** Homepage:http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR In the information age, sharing can increase world wealth enormously, because giving information does not decrease your information. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9869