Re: Cryonics Presents Chilling Question for Life Insurers

CurtAdams@aol.com
Thu, 17 Oct 1996 12:41:40 -0400


>But a real question is presented to cryonicists by this rhetorical question.
> If cryonicists are right and "reanimation" lies in their future, then life
>insurance proceeds paid upon their "deanimation" might be at risk. Will the
>Acme Life Insurance Company be entitled to recover policy death benefits
upon
>reanimation, with interest? Perhaps more chilling, might a life insurance
>adjuster be entitled to question the fact of death at the time the claim is
>made?

When somebody is cryonically suspended you can never consider it a certainty
that the person will be revived. Currently we can't unfreeze, period. Even
when and if such problems are solved there remains the possibility that the
cause of death can never be fixed. So when somebody is frozen, you can't
know whether they'll eventually end up alive or dead, and (this is the point)
you *never* will know that they will remain dead forever. So the only time
you could reasonably pay out would be at the normal death/freezing. If the
life companies maintain they should never pay for somebody who (at the time
of benefits) may well never live again they'll be laughed out of court.

Since all the life insurance companies have planned and priced their policy
without accounting for suspension/reanimation they will just maintain that
policy. It's no problem for them, and there really is no other logical way
to handle it.