X-Message-Number: 2988
From:  (Nick Szabo)
Subject: CRYONICS: Insurance & Financial Risk
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 1994 02:34:42 -0700 (PDT)


Cryonics and insurance companies have opposite financial needs.
Cryonics organizations,  _especially_ patient care 
organizations, need to have as _low_ a financial risk profile 
as is possible.  Low financial risk translates directly into 
stability and longevity of the organization.  Cryonics 
companies want to get rid of as many unpredictable costs 
as is economically feasible.  That means, for example,
trading off the risk of lawsuits to liability insurers, and 
unpredictable suspension costs to life insurance companies.
The role of the insurance companies is to take on these
risks and spread them around widely.

Cryonicists mostly can't predict when suspension costs
will be incurred, and usually spread that risk across a 
huge population of non-cryonicists, via life insurance.  We 
are extremely fortunate that this service is available.  The 
situation is vastly superior to a situation where cryonics 
organizations try to take on this risk.   

Given a viable alternative, I would absolutely not initiate a long 
term relationship, either an expensive to terminate membership or (even 
more emphatically) long term care, with a cryonics organization 
that took on, implicitly or explicitly, the high risks of running 
a small life insurance pool.  I am also quite dubious of patient care 
organizations and trust funds that are exposed to the liabilities 
of the deanimation and suspension process.  I look forward to more 
progress in unbundling and (where possible, even at great cost) 
obtaining liability insurance.  I'm curious about the prospects 
of liability insurance for the various phases of the cryonics 
operation that are exposed to risk of lawsuit, and welcome more 
experienced comments about that topic.

Nick Szabo				

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