What can be done to keep cryonics affordable? Or perhaps one should say; what can be done to maintain your cryonics arrangements until the time you will need them?

Let’s start by asking the question whether cryonics is an expensive procedure. One might argue that cryonics is comparable to other advanced medical procedures such as bypass surgery or brain tumor removal, and a lot less expensive than the (futile) end-of- life care costs that are incurred by many individuals late in life. The monthly costs of life insurance and membership dues are lower than the typical health insurance premium. Unfortunately, one thing that sets cryonics apart from many of these examples is that it requires an active, ongoing, effort to maintain this affordability and neglect (not paying one’s life insurance premiums) can render all of one’s efforts in vain. As affordable as the monthly costs of cryonics may be for many people, most of us do not have the resources to fork over the total cryopreservation minimums (either neuro or whole body) without utilizing insurance or a well-designed estate plan.

The first step is to take out life insurance that is at least appropriate for the cryopreservation arrangements of one’s choice. This has been emphasized before but cannot be reiterated enough. When you are young and healthy, life insurance premiums are much lower. Even if you are not sure whether to make cryonics arrangements yet, having a life insurance policy in place can give you that peace of mind and allow you to secure lower premiums. If income permits, you can take out more insurance than is needed to cover your cryopreservation minimums so that future cost increases can be accommodated. With “premium funding” of at least $20,000 above your minimum, Alcor waives the annual $180 Comprehensive Standby Fee (the “CMS Waiver”).

In my experience many cryonics members spent little time reviewing their existing life insurance policies after they put them in place. This is not a prudent approach, especially for members whose life insurance policies were just sufficient to cover their cryopreservation minimums at the time of joining. If your income increases and this looks like a relatively dependable feature of your future, it can make good sense to increase the coverage of your life insurance policy. This is especially a smart thing to do for members who are still relatively young but further along in their careers.

Another important step is to keep your cryonics arrangements in place throughout your life. Alcor is increasingly moving towards a loyalty-based dues system in which one’s dues diminish over time, for those whose membership in good standing is uninterrupted. One advantage of this decreasing dues system is that your dues will go down when you reach a point in your life when you may no longer work.

What can Alcor do to keep cryonics affordable for you? From the administrative side it can “nudge” you to ensure you do not fall behind on dues (automatic deductions) and remind you to upgrade insufficient or poorly-performing insurance policies. It should aim to take advantage of economies of scale by automating administrative and technical functions and use unexpected surplus income to reduce costs in the long run. Eventually there may come a point where the patient number is high enough to create storage solutions that substantially reduce liquid nitrogen boil-off.

The most important step that Alcor can take now to reduce costs and increase the quality of care is to merge the remote standby/stabilization phase of its procedures with its cryoprotection phase. This “field cryoprotection” is already our recommended protocol for overseas cases. If it can be implemented in many major areas in the US, significant cost reductions may be possible. It is not often that a cryonics organization can improve its procedures and save money at the same time.

Originally published as a column in Cryonics magazine, September -October, 2017