I’m inclined to believe this number is a lie, as I refuse to believe you are stupid enough to make mistakes of this order of magnitude.
The claimed $180/year (claimed $300 figure minus membership costs) * 50 or so more years people will live only gives $9k. Safe investment gives you barely enough to keep up with inflation, so you cannot use exponential growth argument.
Real life insurance costs increase drastically as you age, and as your chance of death increases. Surely you must know that. If you paid the same amount of money each year, you’d need to pay $2k-$5k depending on your cryonics provider and insurance company overhead.
What will very likely happen is people paying for life insurance, then finding out at age of 70 that their life insurance costs increase so much that they cannot afford it any more, and so they won’t see any cryonics even though they paid big money all their lives for it. (Not that chances of cryonics working are significant enough for it to make much difference).
taw, real life insurance costs increase drastically as you age, but only if you are beginning the policy. They don’t readjust the rates on a life insurance policy every year; that’s just buying a series of one-year term-life policies.
I.e., if I buy whole-life insurance coverage at 25, my rate gets locked in. My monthly/annual premium does not increase as I age due to the risk of dying increasing.
In the UK these are called life assurance policies. Assurance, because the event (death) will assuredly happen. You pay a fixed annual sum every year; the insurance company pays out a lump sum when you die. It is a combination of insurance and investment.
Insurance, because the death payout happens even if you don’t live long enough for your payments to cover the lump sum. Investment, because if you live long enough the final payment is funded by what you put in, plus the proceeds of the insurance company’s investments, minus their charges—part of which is the cost of early payouts to less fortunate people.
Some versions have a maturity date: if you’re still alive then, you collect the lump sum yourself and the policy terminates. At that point the lump sum will be less that what you could have made by investing those payments yourself. The difference is what you are paying in order to protect against dying early.
As always, remember that investments may plummet as well as fall.
All these benefits come with a guarantee that your premium won’t change. The basic premium you agree to now will remain the same throughout the life of your policy.
So umm… yeah. That’s how life insurance usually works.
ETA: This is the first time I’ve heard, “life insurance doesn’t work” as an objection to cryonics.
If you don’t mind my asking, how much goes in, and how much comes out? taw’s math that no policy is going to pay out more than fifty times the annual pay-in seems like it has to be right.
Remember that a lot of people who get life insurance policies cancel them before they die, or fall on hard times and can’t pay the premiums. I’m 24 and healthy. I went the more expensive route and got whole life insurance, so my premiums are $64/month. With Alcor dues I end up spending about a grand per year on cryonics. Did I mention I picked what is basically the most expensive option? (Alcor whole body preservation with whole life insurance). You could easily cut that down to $300/year if you went with CI and term life insurance.
$64 * 12 * 50 = $38,400, which is a bit less than the policy of $200k. If that money were invested every month, it would end up being significantly more than the policy amount.
Why is it stupid? Young people are the best customers- they aren’t likely to die anytime soon so insurer’s make a bundle off them even with the lower rates.
“Funded by life insurance” strikes me as an oversimplified summary of a strategy that must necessarily be more sophisticated. Plus “life insurance” actually means several different things, only some of which actually insure you against loss of life.
I’m still trying to find out more, but it seems the most effective plan would be a “term” life insurance (costs about $30 a month for 20 years at my age, 40ish and healthy), which lasts a limited duration, isn’t an investment, but does pay out a large sum to designated beneficiaries in the event of death. (I haven’t done the math on inflation yet.) You would combine that with actual long-term investments earmarked for funding the actual costs of the procedure if you need it after 20 years. These investments may be “life insurance” of the usual kind, or stocks, or whatever.
Doing that mitigates the scenario I’m really worried about: learning in 2 to 10 years that in spite of being (relatively) young, healthy and wealthy I have a fatal disease (cancer, Lou Gehrig, whatever) and having to choose between my family’s stability and dying for ever. Cryonics as insurance against feeling dreadfully stupid.
In twenty years I expect I will have obtained more information, and gotten richer, and might make different choices.
I’m interested enough in cryo that I’m actually trying to get actual quotes, as opposed to merely speculating; I have gotten in touch with Rudi Hoffman who was recommended earlier on LW. My situation—non-US resident—might mean that whatever results I get are not really representative, but I’m willing to report back here with whatever info I get.
Term life insurance is not the only type available. Most people who get term life insurance plan on having enough money saved up by the time the term runs out. Whole life insurance has no change in premium for the entire lifetime of the insured.
All these benefits come with a guarantee that your premium won’t change. The basic premium you agree to now will remain the same throughout the life of your policy.
So umm… yeah. That’s how life insurance usually works.
ETA: This is the first time I’ve heard, “life insurance doesn’t work” as an objection to cryonics.
And what are their premiums? They simply have to be far higher than form 25 year old’s 20 year term life insurance if their business is to make any profits. The only low premiums I’ve seen so far are for young people’s term life insurance, which people keep naively extrapolating ignoring aging.
I’m really disappointed that this supposedly rational community keeps failing basic math. The entire “cryonics is cheap” argument relies on failing basic math.
Remember that a lot of people who get life insurance policies cancel them before they die, or fall on hard times and can’t pay the premiums. I’m 24 and healthy. I went the more expensive route and got whole life insurance, so my premiums are $64/month. With Alcor dues I end up spending about a grand per year on cryonics. Did I mention I picked what is basically the most expensive option? (Alcor whole body preservation with whole life insurance). You could easily cut that down to $300/year if you went with CI and term life insurance.
$64 * 12 * 50 = $38,400, which is a bit less than the policy of $200k. If that money were invested every month, it would end up being significantly more than the policy amount.
Term life insurance is not a bad idea for most people. Lots of people save up money over their careers. $80,000 is barely a down payment on a condo in the bay area.
I’m really disappointed that this supposedly rational community keeps failing basic math. The entire “cryonics is cheap” argument relies on failing basic math.
$80,000 plus $500 a year in membership dues is cheap. (Alcor). I can multiply, divide and find various integrals and derivatives of those figures if it makes you happy. Perhaps it is my English skills that are my flaw? You dispute my understanding of ‘cheap’?
80k is for neuro-preservation, full body is 150k. Neither of them counts as “cheap” by any definition of “cheap”. It’s also at least an order of magnitude more expensive than what Eliezer keeps talking about ($300/year).
This reference says it’s much more if you include all costs:
The Cryonics Institute charges $28,000 for perfusion and storage of an Lifetime Member and $35,000 for a Yearly Member. [...] For service more comparable to what Alcor provides — including Standby and Transport — a Lifetime Member pays $88,000 and a Yearly Member pays $95,000. For details on CI pricing see Membership and Details Concerning SA Standby and Transport for CI Members.
Neither of them counts as “cheap” by any definition of “cheap”.
Dollars per expected day of life extension. Applying the same definition to other health investments makes cryonics the ‘cheap’ option. I agree that this is probably not the definition used by some advocates.
It’s also at least an order of magnitude more expensive than what Eliezer keeps talking about ($300/year).
The $300/year is supposed to be the insurance rate for a $100k policy, but I agree—that is not cheap. I am likely to make enough money to afford it if I stay on my current career plan (mechanical engineering), but it’s not a negligible sum.
I’m 32. I fit in the “Preferred” health group. 30 year term life insurance with a 100k payout is 168/year as per the quotes page I provided above.
As AngryParsley mentions, if you purchase term life insurance you’re planing on having savings to cover your needs after your policy expires. This is my plan.
However, I suppose in say 15 years, I could purchase another 30 year/100k term insurance policy. Let’s say I slip a category to “Standard Plus”.
My premium will be 550/year. That of course assumes I didn’t save anything during those 15 years (not to mention the remaining 15 years in the original policy) and need a 100k policy.
So the plan changed from “only $300/month for cryonics” to $300/month for term life insurance and membership feeds + somehow save the entire $100k anyway + obviously save even more money for retirement and all other things normal people save for?
This is very expensive and risky proposition, most people will not be able to afford it. Most people who think they’ll save that much won’t.
Are you a finite state machine? I have told youtwice that whole life insurance is available and costs about the same as cable television if you want to pay for the most expensive cryopreservation available. CI + whole life insurance would probably be $500/year.
This will be my last post on the issue as it seems like maybe I’m being trolled.
I never claimed it was $300/month.
My claim is exactly what I stated.
That is: As per the quotes page linked, my term insurance for 100k/30 year is 168/year. If I was concerned with not having the savings at the end of that 30 years, I would probably in 15 years buy another 100k/30 year term policy for 550/year.
Which is more likely...that everyone else at LW fails at basic math, or that you fail at basic math?
I’m inclined to believe this number is a lie, as I refuse to believe you are stupid enough to make mistakes of this order of magnitude.
The claimed $180/year (claimed $300 figure minus membership costs) * 50 or so more years people will live only gives $9k. Safe investment gives you barely enough to keep up with inflation, so you cannot use exponential growth argument.
Real costs are around $100k-$200k reference.
Real life insurance costs increase drastically as you age, and as your chance of death increases. Surely you must know that. If you paid the same amount of money each year, you’d need to pay $2k-$5k depending on your cryonics provider and insurance company overhead.
What will very likely happen is people paying for life insurance, then finding out at age of 70 that their life insurance costs increase so much that they cannot afford it any more, and so they won’t see any cryonics even though they paid big money all their lives for it. (Not that chances of cryonics working are significant enough for it to make much difference).
taw, real life insurance costs increase drastically as you age, but only if you are beginning the policy. They don’t readjust the rates on a life insurance policy every year; that’s just buying a series of one-year term-life policies.
I.e., if I buy whole-life insurance coverage at 25, my rate gets locked in. My monthly/annual premium does not increase as I age due to the risk of dying increasing.
How does the insurer hope to make a profit, given that they’re probably betting on death being inevitable?
In the UK these are called life assurance policies. Assurance, because the event (death) will assuredly happen. You pay a fixed annual sum every year; the insurance company pays out a lump sum when you die. It is a combination of insurance and investment. Insurance, because the death payout happens even if you don’t live long enough for your payments to cover the lump sum. Investment, because if you live long enough the final payment is funded by what you put in, plus the proceeds of the insurance company’s investments, minus their charges—part of which is the cost of early payouts to less fortunate people.
Some versions have a maturity date: if you’re still alive then, you collect the lump sum yourself and the policy terminates. At that point the lump sum will be less that what you could have made by investing those payments yourself. The difference is what you are paying in order to protect against dying early.
As always, remember that investments may plummet as well as fall.
AngryParsley did a good job summing it up below.
1) While death is inevitable, payout is not.
2) Investment income.
3) Inflation eroding the true cost of the payout.
I’d love to see which insurer is stupid enough to offer something like that. Care to provide links?
I have a policy with Kansas City Life Insurance:
So umm… yeah. That’s how life insurance usually works.
ETA: This is the first time I’ve heard, “life insurance doesn’t work” as an objection to cryonics.
If you don’t mind my asking, how much goes in, and how much comes out? taw’s math that no policy is going to pay out more than fifty times the annual pay-in seems like it has to be right.
Remember that a lot of people who get life insurance policies cancel them before they die, or fall on hard times and can’t pay the premiums. I’m 24 and healthy. I went the more expensive route and got whole life insurance, so my premiums are $64/month. With Alcor dues I end up spending about a grand per year on cryonics. Did I mention I picked what is basically the most expensive option? (Alcor whole body preservation with whole life insurance). You could easily cut that down to $300/year if you went with CI and term life insurance.
$64 * 12 * 50 = $38,400, which is a bit less than the policy of $200k. If that money were invested every month, it would end up being significantly more than the policy amount.
Why is it stupid? Young people are the best customers- they aren’t likely to die anytime soon so insurer’s make a bundle off them even with the lower rates.
“Funded by life insurance” strikes me as an oversimplified summary of a strategy that must necessarily be more sophisticated. Plus “life insurance” actually means several different things, only some of which actually insure you against loss of life.
I’m still trying to find out more, but it seems the most effective plan would be a “term” life insurance (costs about $30 a month for 20 years at my age, 40ish and healthy), which lasts a limited duration, isn’t an investment, but does pay out a large sum to designated beneficiaries in the event of death. (I haven’t done the math on inflation yet.) You would combine that with actual long-term investments earmarked for funding the actual costs of the procedure if you need it after 20 years. These investments may be “life insurance” of the usual kind, or stocks, or whatever.
Doing that mitigates the scenario I’m really worried about: learning in 2 to 10 years that in spite of being (relatively) young, healthy and wealthy I have a fatal disease (cancer, Lou Gehrig, whatever) and having to choose between my family’s stability and dying for ever. Cryonics as insurance against feeling dreadfully stupid.
In twenty years I expect I will have obtained more information, and gotten richer, and might make different choices.
I’m interested enough in cryo that I’m actually trying to get actual quotes, as opposed to merely speculating; I have gotten in touch with Rudi Hoffman who was recommended earlier on LW. My situation—non-US resident—might mean that whatever results I get are not really representative, but I’m willing to report back here with whatever info I get.
My current life insurance policy is what is called “term life insurance”. It is good for a term of 20 years.
The payout if I die within those 20 years is $500,000.
My monthly premium is $40 for that whole 20 years.
You can get an instant online quote here. You don’t have to put in real name and email address.
Even assuming best health class—something which won’t happen as you age.
Age 27, quotes: 250-600
Age 47, quotes: 720-1970
Age 67, quotes: 6550-13890
Age 77: nobody willing to provide insurance
In other words, this is exactly what I was talking about—it’s a big fat lie to pretend your premium won’t change as you age.
Term life insurance is not the only type available. Most people who get term life insurance plan on having enough money saved up by the time the term runs out. Whole life insurance has no change in premium for the entire lifetime of the insured.
And where are quotes for that, proving my point again?
You asked before and I replied:
Downvoted for going against taw’s Outside the influence of evidence View?
And what are their premiums? They simply have to be far higher than form 25 year old’s 20 year term life insurance if their business is to make any profits. The only low premiums I’ve seen so far are for young people’s term life insurance, which people keep naively extrapolating ignoring aging.
I’m really disappointed that this supposedly rational community keeps failing basic math. The entire “cryonics is cheap” argument relies on failing basic math.
Again, I replied in the very same thread I linked to.
Term life insurance is not a bad idea for most people. Lots of people save up money over their careers. $80,000 is barely a down payment on a condo in the bay area.
I should note that most of the organizations we are talking about (Alcor, ACS, CI) are non-profits.
$80,000 plus $500 a year in membership dues is cheap. (Alcor). I can multiply, divide and find various integrals and derivatives of those figures if it makes you happy. Perhaps it is my English skills that are my flaw? You dispute my understanding of ‘cheap’?
80k is for neuro-preservation, full body is 150k. Neither of them counts as “cheap” by any definition of “cheap”. It’s also at least an order of magnitude more expensive than what Eliezer keeps talking about ($300/year).
CI is $50K for whole-body.
This reference says it’s much more if you include all costs:
28,000 means enough vitrification solution for neuro
I thought their current website said $30K, if you don’t contract for standby services?
That’s not including the cost of transportation to CI.
Oh.
Dollars per expected day of life extension. Applying the same definition to other health investments makes cryonics the ‘cheap’ option. I agree that this is probably not the definition used by some advocates.
Yes. (Well, if you use binary or base 4.)
The $300/year is supposed to be the insurance rate for a $100k policy, but I agree—that is not cheap. I am likely to make enough money to afford it if I stay on my current career plan (mechanical engineering), but it’s not a negligible sum.
I’m 32. I fit in the “Preferred” health group. 30 year term life insurance with a 100k payout is 168/year as per the quotes page I provided above.
As AngryParsley mentions, if you purchase term life insurance you’re planing on having savings to cover your needs after your policy expires. This is my plan.
However, I suppose in say 15 years, I could purchase another 30 year/100k term insurance policy. Let’s say I slip a category to “Standard Plus”.
My premium will be 550/year. That of course assumes I didn’t save anything during those 15 years (not to mention the remaining 15 years in the original policy) and need a 100k policy.
So the plan changed from “only $300/month for cryonics” to $300/month for term life insurance and membership feeds + somehow save the entire $100k anyway + obviously save even more money for retirement and all other things normal people save for?
This is very expensive and risky proposition, most people will not be able to afford it. Most people who think they’ll save that much won’t.
Are you a finite state machine? I have told you twice that whole life insurance is available and costs about the same as cable television if you want to pay for the most expensive cryopreservation available. CI + whole life insurance would probably be $500/year.
This will be my last post on the issue as it seems like maybe I’m being trolled.
I never claimed it was $300/month.
My claim is exactly what I stated.
That is: As per the quotes page linked, my term insurance for 100k/30 year is 168/year. If I was concerned with not having the savings at the end of that 30 years, I would probably in 15 years buy another 100k/30 year term policy for 550/year.
Which is more likely...that everyone else at LW fails at basic math, or that you fail at basic math?
FYI: I misread your comment as comparing an option where you buy the policy now to an option where you buy the policy later.
“Lie” is much too strong a term, but I get the same result when I multiply 180 by 50, and I’m curious to understand the discrepancy.