From: Robert Bradbury (bradbury@genebee.msu.su)
Date: Fri Apr 07 2000 - 23:02:28 MDT
On Fri, 7 Apr 2000, Randy Smith wrote:
> During that time period if you die, your beneficiary will get paid (the cryo
> org, in this case). After 20 or 30 years (most term is 20 years, but no
> longer than 30--and you must pay continuously during those 20-30 years,
> AFAIK) your term life insurance is kaput.
[snip]
> So, then what you want is called whole/universal/flexible life. This pays a
> death benefit no matter when you die, tomorrow, or 100 years from now.
> Also, you build equity with whole life. [snip]
Randy makes some good points, but I'm not sure the case is cut and dried.
I have a large whole life policy, going to my estate. Separating that
into portions that go to the Cryonics org and my estate involves some
legal headaches. If you want to be *really* intelligent about it you
want to setup a trust separate from any single Cryonics org that is
responsible for managing your resources, potentially moving your body/brain
to better organizations, determining when and how you are reanimated,
etc. The question is - how do you get an agent to think like you would
and make the choices you would logically make, during your "down time"?
Now, for me, I still look at term life going directly to the Cryonics
org on perhaps 5-10 year "terms" because technologies, risks and benefits
change over time. Sure, getting term life gets more expensive as you
get older, but you presumably have comparably more income/wealth to pay
for it. For many people today, if you manage your investments wisely,
you may have the option of "buying in" completely to a cryonic suspension
with an up-front payment by the time you are middle-aged. Presumably you
should get some kind of discount for this. At the same time, the
"whole life", insurance company managed investments, are unlikely to
generate a "market" return on the investment (due to the conservative
strategy of insurance companies and the overhead of the "management"
provided by the company). Term life is cheap because of the very low
probability that you will die young. Whole life is expensive because
of the probability that you *will* die. So to my way of thinking, you
buy the cheap insurance when you are young to deal with the possibility
of "accidents", invest your money more wisely and productively than the
insurance companies are likely to do and potentially invest in ways that
accelerate the technology developments to the degree that you don't
need either form of insurance.
Robert
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