X-Message-Number: 14932
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
Subject: guaranteeing payment
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 10:39:20 -0000

The thought has occurred to me a safer method of guaranteeing payment would
be as follows:

The patient takes out a loan secured on an endowment policy and pays the
cryonics organisation in advance. He pays loan interest and the endowment
premium. When the endowment policy matures, the payout pays off the loan
direct to the loan company. I know that this will not be popular, but it is
a logical extension to the plans Alcor is making and it is perfectly safe as
far as Alcor is concerned. Alcor need no longer be concerned as to whether
the endowment policies are safe or not.

Personally, I do think that Alcor ought to invest the money it has received
for these prepayments and invests at an appropriate rate of growth to ensure
that inflation of costs is met by investment gains. I would imagine, though,
that many people would prefer the certainty of inflation losses as opposed
to the uncertainty of gains being made by investment. (Most people reading
this list must know my "anthropic investment in technology" ideas.) But that
is a matter for Alcor and its members.

The loan/endowment proposals would be more expensive, but it seems a logical
way to get rid of the problems at present being experienced by Alcor with
life insurance. Patients' expense does not really seem to be a
consideration. Personally I and some others find this anomalous, but the
fact remains that Alcor has the largest numbers of members signed up for
cryopreservation and obviously they find it satisfactory. That is what the
free market is all about.

I hope it is helpful.

note:
In case it is called something else in the US, what I mean by an endowment
policy is a life policy that pays out a fixed sum at the sooner of a fixed
date in the future or the policyholder dies. They are often used in the UK
to fund house purchase, which is a cost comparable to an Alcor
cryopreservation, and the payout would be to the mortgage company.

--
Sincerely, John de Rivaz
my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, music, Inventors'
report, an autobio and various other projects:
http://www.geocities.com/longevityrpt
http://www.autopsychoice.com - should you be able to chose autopsy?

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