INTRODUCTION

An Alcor member is a person who has full legal and financial arrangements in effect for cryopreservation with Alcor. (Associate membership is available for those who support Alcor’s mission and/or who are considering making cryonics arrangements in the future.) Becoming an Alcor member is easy and surprisingly affordable, if you are in good health and eligible for life insurance, which will pay for your cryopreservation. (If you are not insurable, other financial arrangements can be made. Please ask us for details.)

Our fees are provided in Schedule A of our basic contract. The contract and other sign-up documents are available in the Alcor Membership Information section of the Library on this website so you can read them in advance.

STEP BY STEP: HOW TO BECOME AN ALCOR MEMBER

To ask questions or request an information package, contact:

Diane Cremeens, Alcor Membership Department Coordinator

Email: diane@alcor.org

Phone: 1-877-GO-ALCOR (1-877-462-5267) extension 132

Outside of the United States, dial: +1 480 905 1906

Business hours are M-F 9-5 Mountain Standard Time

(Arizona does not use Daylight Savings Time)

Fax: 1-480-922-9027

When you’re ready to proceed, these are the steps that you will take.

1. Submit an application

The application for membership is a fillable PDF and can be emailed to the above email address (or could be printed and mailed or faxed if you prefer). If you don’t have all of the information that the form requires, fill in what you do know and submit it to Alcor. You may write “Pending” in the appropriate section if your funding arrangements have not yet been completed. What’s most important is that you answer the questions in Section IV, entitled Decisions Concerning Your Cryopreservation, as this information is necessary to generate your membership documents.

2. Submit an application fee

There is a mandatory, non-refundable application fee of $300. This fee will be applied to your membership dues once your membership is finalized (and meanwhile you will automatically be an Associate Member). The application fee for additional adult family members is $200 and $50 for children. If your membership is not finalized after four months, you will be charged a quarterly extended application fee of $90 ($45 for minor family members).

3. Complete your Alcor Membership Documents

After we receive your application, we will send a set of legal documents that you must sign to confirm your understanding of cryonics, your personal preferences, and your desire for cryopreservation. Samples of these documents are in the Alcor Membership Information section of the Library. You will need witnesses for these documents, and one of the documents must be notarized. This is for your protection. We want to be able to defend your decision against any possible legal challenge in the future, when you may not be able to speak for yourself.

4. Obtain Funding

For most people a life insurance policy is the simplest and least expensive option. If you are planning to fund your cryopreservation through other means, please contact us. Alcor also accepts cash prepayment for placement into a bank account or trust. Alcor can provide a template Revocable Cryopreservation Trust which can be used as is or customized to meet your needs. But for most people, life insurance works best.

There are two major requirements with life insurance policies:

First, the death benefit must be no less than our minimum requirement, which is currently $80,000 for neurocryopreservation members and $200,000 for whole body cryopreservation members. (If members residing in the continental U.S. and Canada prefer not to pay the $180 annual CMS fee, then the minimums are $100,000 for neurocryopreservation members and $220,000 for whole body members.) Members who choose the neurocryopreservation option will receive cryopreservation of the head and brain, in expectation that tissue regeneration will replace the body. (An additional $10,000 surcharge is applied for international applicants. There is no surcharge for residents of Canada).

Second, Alcor must be designated not only as the beneficiary of the life insurance policy, but also as its owner. This guarantees that the beneficiary cannot be changed without our knowledge, and we will be informed if the premium is unpaid. Alcor will provide a written guarantee that it will surrender its ownership status if you choose to abandon your cryonics arrangements or move to a different organization. You may use any insurance agent, but if you have a problem or you would like to deal with a cryonics insurance specialist, please see our list of insurance agents or contact our Director of Membership Services, listed above. Note that Alcor has no business arrangements with these agents and our list does not imply any endorsement by Alcor.

If you are funding your cryopreservation through life insurance, it is important to remember that our minimum requirement can change over time. It can therefore be prudent for the death benefit to be greater than the minimum requirement. Alcor cannot make commitments regarding future changes to the cryopreservation minimums, but below is a chart showing how those minimums have changed over the past 35 years. Note that the $100,000 required for whole body cryopreservation in 1982 dollars would be roughly $261,000 in December 2016 dollars, compared to the current $200,000 price. Over the past 35 years, Alcor has averaged an annualized increase of 2.4% for neurocryopreservation minimums, and 2.0% for whole body. This equates to a doubling time of roughly 29 years for neurocryopreservations and 35 years for whole body.

It is not necessary to have an insurance policy prior to entering the sign-up process. You can work on completing your membership paperwork while simultaneously arranging your funding. These typically take approximately one month each from start to finish, so doing them at the same time works best.

Note: If you think you may want cryonics, but haven’t yet signed up, you can help make it possible for others to sign you up for cryonics in an emergency situation by signing a Declaration of Intent to Be Cryopreserved. However, this document will not sign you up for cryopreservation.

We look forward to hearing from you!