X-Message-Number: 2998 Date: Fri, 19 Aug 94 16:59:22 From: Subject: CRYONICS Self Insurance Thanks for your comments re insurance, Mike. They were very helpful. I agree that having all relevant medical information on our members would be very useful, and I also agree that we should move further in this direction. But I don't see that this motivation in and of itself is enough to warrant a move into the insurance business (even combined with the possibility of pure monetary profit.) Insurance companies fail. When they fail, their customers are sometimes just completely screwed. Using life insurance from standard companies, our members already run this risk. But they assume the risk individually. No one insurance company holds a monopoly over cryonics policies, and the risk is therefore distributed and the likely damage of any failure contained. What reason is there to believe that any of the current cryonics companies would be particularly successful as an insurance company? Even if we grant that it is easy to make money this way, why take on the risk when there are so many others out there already assuming the risk for us, with much greater resources at their disposal in case of failure? And if it's just the access to medical data that compels us, why not come up with other ways to get it? If it's that crucial, we could ask our members to get a simple physical, or the UA, BP readings, etc., that you described as adequate for assessing risk in the insurance business. Or if we must get in on the profits being made by the insurance companies, why not argue that some cryonicist or group of cryonicists should start an insurance company themselves, with some sort of agreement beforehand that we would shuffle clients in their direction in return for some set donation of their profits plus access to any medical data obtained? Why do we (and our already frozen patients) need to take on all of that risk ourselves? 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=2998