X-Message-Number: 4698
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 21:46:42 -0800
From:  (American Cryonics Society)
Subject: A BIG CIGAR FOR BROOK NORTON

Good for you, Brook Norton.  Give the man a big cigar!  Your "little
different idea," of not tying the survival of a patient to the survival of
a cryonics organization is right on the money.  Brook, you have just
described the program of the American Cryonics Society.

We call this strategy "fail safe" planning and have implemented it since
our founding in 1969.  The money for a particular patient goes into a
separate trust, or in some cases simply a separate fund earmarked for that
patient.   Even if the American Cryonics Society goes out of business, as
long as there are companies willing to: 1. manage the funds and 2. take
care of the patient for a fee, the patient still has a chance of ultimate
revival.

This idea is by no means unique to cryonics.  For example, by both custom
and law, life insurance companies agree to take over and honor the policies
of any company which goes broke.  The policy owner simply gets a
notification which states that his policy has been taken over by a new
company and the policy owners is to, henceforth, send premiums to the new
company.  The policy provisions are honored, to the letter, by the new
company.

Incidentally, this "fail safe" strategy also helps to protect the cryonics
organization, in that the fate of the organization is not so tied to
particular patients that lawsuits or other extra-ordinary costs associated
with a particular patient will wipe out the cryonics organization or
bankrupt the trust funds of other patients.

The down side is this strategy places more of a burden on the individual
member making suspension arrangements to provide adequate funding.  It also
puts most of the patient care money effectively out of the control of the
cryonics organization.  If the American Cryonics Society were to be
completely convinced that a little extra money spent on research could
shorten the time of all of our patients in suspension we could not use
patient trust funds to pay for that research except where a patient's trust
document itself designates that use.

Yet another problem with separate trusts is that the income from some or
all such trusts may be taxable.  The question of the charitable nature of
cryonics trusts has not yet been tested in the courts.


Long life,


Jim Yount

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American Cryonics Society                 (408)734-4200
                   FAX (408)734-4441
P.O. Box 1509
Cupertino, CA 95015
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