X-Message-Number: 15450
From: 
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 13:15:32 EST
Subject: life insurance questions

Dan Hitt has asked about experience with life insurance companies--which have 
paid off for cryonics funding and any that did not.

First, although a majority of open CI contracts are funded through life 
insurance, that has not been the case with our actual patients. Of 36 
patients, only five were funded through life insurance. All of those paid 
off. The companies were:

Prudential (2), Loyalty Life of Kansas City MO, Met Life, and London Life 
(London, Ontario, Canada).

We have no reason to believe that there will be any problems with existing 
contracts just because a cryonics organization is the beneficiary, especially 
since now we have several agents with experience in the field, listed on our 
web site. 

We don't expect any problems with foreign companies either. In a few 
countries, such as England, special paperwork needs to be done--a bit of a 
nuisance, but not a major problem.

In years past, there were warnings from some quarters that, unless you have a 
letter from a high-ranking officer of the company, the company could still 
refuse to pay on the grounds that a cryonics organization does not have an 
"insurable interest" in the life of the insured. But of course--and with the 
usual disclaimer that I am not a lawyer nor an insurance expert--we do have 
an insurable interest. We have a contract, and in effect the life insurance 
guarantees a debt. It is the same thing, in principle, as having life 
insurance to pay off a mortgage if the insured dies. More important, 
probably, is the fact that the insurance companies get additional business 
from cryonics, the actuarial statistics are unchanged, and the companies 
would hurt themselves in the end if they created problems.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org 

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