X-Message-Number: 2990 Date: Mon, 15 Aug 94 17:38:05 From: <> Subject: CRYONICS Re: Insurance Keith F. Lynch writes: >Perhaps a cryonics organization could get a big discount on life >insurance by pre-buying some large number of policies, carefully >tailored to the needs of the cryonics organization, and could then >automatically bundle one of these policies in with each >membership in the organization? We've recently looked into an idea very much in line with this suggestion: group insurance for members of a cryonics organization. Answer: no can do. There are very strict laws regulating insurance companies regarding to whom and for what they can sell group insurance. Cryonics organizations don't qualify. If we were something called a "fraternal benefits society" they could sell us group insurance for our members. But we aren't, so they can't. Group insurance, to qualify as such, must be something that is intended primarily as a benefit (i.e., a "side" benefit, or "fringe" benefit) for those in the group, as is the case with group life insurance for employees of large companies. With cryonics membership organizations, the insurance pays for suspension, and suspensions are the main reason for the existence of the organization in the first place. Other than group insurance, I can't see how a cryonics organization could "pre-buy" life insurance policies. It wouldn't be in the insurance company's interest to sell policies for people whose health status is unknown to the insurance underwriter. ("What we lose on individual deals we'll make up in volume!") Actually, I really must agree with Nick Szabo on the attractiveness of self-insurance in general. While it is true that there is "a lot of money to be made," as some of you have said, there is also a lot of money to be *lost.* Complete insolvency is not something we could afford. (Pun more or less intended. :-) If we take on the risk of insuring future cryonics patients ourselves, we also take on the responsibility of making sure that all of our members (or some large portion of them) aren't going to just pay us one or two year's worth of fees, only to need suspension immediately thereafter. I'd bet that there are quite a few terminal patients out there who would be more than happy to pay a couple of year's dues for even a slim chance at life, if that's all it would cost them. This would mean that our membership rolls would swell artificially because of an influx of terminal patients. And if we took on the responsibility (and hassle) of determining their health (i.e., risk of death) for ourselves, the way that insurance companies already do, then we would basically be giving those terminal patients a strong incentive to lie to us. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. To drastically paraphrase Mr. Szabo, "Better the insurance companies than us!" (I.e., I'll feel much better if the onus for determining whether a given individual is healthy is left with the insurance companies. They can afford a mistake or twenty. We can't.) Forward in all directions! Derek Ryan Membership Administrator Alcor Life Extension Foundation Ph. # 602-922-9013 Email: Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2990