X-Message-Number: 1958
Date: 14 Mar 93 14:28:47 EST
From: Garret Smyth <>
Subject: CRYONICS Self-insurance

There is a strong draw to the idea of self-insurance, which, I must say,
I am not immune to. However, don't get carried away with it.

There is no reason to suppose that a bunch of cryonicists could run an
insurance compnay any better than a bunch of insurance professionals. In
fact, reading recent postings, clearly we have less knowledge about
insurance than insurance executives, so we'd probably be worse at it.

The main benefit from owning an insurance company would be that instead
of part of the profits going to shareholders, it would be reinvested,
providing greater returns. The same effect can be achieved by joining a
mutual insurnace company, which has no shareholders, and that share of
the profits is distributed to the customers (or members as they are
often called). Surveys tend to show that on average this type of company
does better in the long run.

If there aren't such companies in the US, then maybe it would be a good
idea to start one, since a market niche is being left empty, and
non-cryonicist customers might be attracted.

I can think of some other benefits to having our own insurance company,
which is that policies could be tailored to suit cryonicists, but my
current policy (with a mutual) seems to fit me quite well at the moment,
and I wouldn't switch to a tiny company that was run by people who didn't
know much about the business, unless htey were offering something very
special; remote standby insurance, for example.

Garret

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