X-Message-Number: 1239 From: Subject: CRYONICS Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 22:07:43 PDT Keith Lofstrom posted on: >Disadvantages for self-funded life insurance: In ref to point 1, I very much doubt the insurance companies lose money on the cryonics folks. Point 2, The cryonics crew is more varied than you might think at first. I doubt we would get much in the way of common causes to be suspended. Point 3, driving away older members, not likely. As I pointed out, when someone got suspended who was using Alcor insurance, we would just take the money from one pocket and put it in another. Point 4. If we had to we could duke it out with insurance commissioners, but as a group they are likely to be a lot easier to get along with than the State Health Department. Mostly they deal in MONEY and don't care about much else. Point 5. Money in an insurance company is watched over by several organizations outside of the officers. And hopefully, we will be paying living wages to the officers eventually--not that they have a tendency to raid the cookie jar anyway. If they did, where would they go when they needed to be suspended? Point 6. I don't remember saying that insurance companies are making huge profits, but they are making money from suspension members. And, in essence, we will be investing the patent care fund in an insurance company eventually. Point 7. If Alcor's insurance company decides a person is such a high risk that it will not take them, they can get insurance elsewhere. There is no intent to make this an exclusive deal. After all, a lot of us are long locked into our insurance companies and can't switch. Point 8. Eventually Alcor will own a liquid nitrogen plant, more likely an entire company. Like the insurance business, it is just a matter of time. Re the concept of doing what you are good at, by that time, we will be able to get people who are good at it to run the insurance company and the LN2 plant. With considerable luck, they may be both good at it and suspension members to boot. [misc positive points deleted] >Personally, I think none of the advantages are compelling reasons >to pick up another activity. For us supporting members of a >small volunteer organization like Alcor, our time is better spent >in getting filthy rich doing the things we are good at, and >socking that money away for Alcor's current or eventual use. While there is no doubt that Alcor is still a small volunteer organization in a lot of places, and will be that way for a long time, its central operations are getting to be of significant size. And with a doubling time of three years or so, we have to consider that it is going to be a rather substantial operation in the not too distant future. Actually, Alcor might well become associated with an insurance company owned by a member a lot sooner than we think. There are several members who are wealthy enough to purchase a small insurance company in one of the states which does not require so much capital. One of these might see an opportunity to do something profitable for themselves and Alcor. One very astute (and *very* successful) businessman who has looked at the "mass market" aspects of cryonics concluded (after his own experiences getting signed up) that a "one step" (including financing) signup procedure would be required for cryonics to really grow. I think he is right. Keith Henson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1239