Given the nature of the insurance business, the expected value of buying life insurance should be negative
This is thoroughly confused. The expected amount of money out of the deal is negative, but even expected value of money is positive (otherwise people shouldn’t buy insurance), and in this particular case you need to think about expected value of your post-revival life, not money.
Life insurance is purchased more for signaling than as a financial instrument. (Life insurance was unsellable when the product was invented; the concept of your family profiting from your death was morbid. Salesmen eventually realized they had to market it as something a man purchases to provide for his family in the unlikely event of his death; buying it was buying the identity of a successful family man.)
Life insurance is purchased more for signaling than as a financial instrument.
I originally wrote “otherwise people won’t buy insurance”, then recognized the difference, and posted the phrasing “otherwise people shouldn’t buy insurance”. A lot of insurance really does have positive expected value.
The expected amount of money out of the deal is negative
That’s what I meant to say.
If were to try to buy cryonics with a life insurance policy, I’ll probably run out of savings with which to pay the insurance premiums before I die of natural causes.
This is thoroughly confused. The expected amount of money out of the deal is negative, but even expected value of money is positive (otherwise people shouldn’t buy insurance), and in this particular case you need to think about expected value of your post-revival life, not money.
Life insurance is purchased more for signaling than as a financial instrument. (Life insurance was unsellable when the product was invented; the concept of your family profiting from your death was morbid. Salesmen eventually realized they had to market it as something a man purchases to provide for his family in the unlikely event of his death; buying it was buying the identity of a successful family man.)
I originally wrote “otherwise people won’t buy insurance”, then recognized the difference, and posted the phrasing “otherwise people shouldn’t buy insurance”. A lot of insurance really does have positive expected value.
That’s what I meant to say.
If were to try to buy cryonics with a life insurance policy, I’ll probably run out of savings with which to pay the insurance premiums before I die of natural causes.
Ah, OK. Assuming the insane premises that you keep stating, this conclusion makes sense.