In response to the second point, perhaps one could insure, not a number of years of life, but instead some number of QUALYs, perhaps to be had within a certain time-frame.

So then, if you go blind (which I think has a disability weighting of about 0.5), the insurance company would have to cough up the proportion of the money corresponding to the QUALYs you'd lose.

So suppose I'm in a contract for 80 QUALYs up to the age of 80, and the value of the policy is $2 million. Then if I go blind at 35, I've lost (40/2) = 20 QUALYs, which is 1/4 of my policy, and so I'd get $500,000.

Perhaps if there was a prospect of, say, your blindness being reversed, the company might pay out each year you were blind, or something.