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John_Maxwell_IV comments on How to get cryocrastinators to actually sign up for cryonics - Less Wrong
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Hm. Based on the research I did, there's no special advantage life-insurance-wise to signing up early. This makes sense from an economics point of view--there's no reason in particular for life insurance providers to give you an especially good deal just because you signed up early.
The premiums do go up as the age at which you start a whole life insurance policy increases. Unless when you are delaying you are saving the money you would have paid in premiums (and investing it as well as the insurance issuer would) to subsidize the higher premiums later (no one is actually doing that), getting life insurance is going to get increasingly expensive as you age. Unless you are increasing your income to match, this makes it less affordable.
It's not that the insurance provider is giving a good deal for signing up early, it's that life insurance is like an investment with risk management added on, and starting early gives your investment more time to grow.
Hey, this is a site about rationality. I'll bet at least a few people save their money or donate to charity instead of buying stuff they don't really need.
That sounds like a bet you would win. However, the thing I claim no one is actually doing is taking the money they would be spending on whole life insurance premiums, and investing it as well as an insurance provider would, for the purpose of later subsidizing the larger premiums they would have to pay for whole life insurance when they are older. That would be a crazy thing to do, as it is more work, more risk in resources that are sub-linearly instrumentally valued, and doesn't cover you during the time you are investing instead of paying premiums.
It's only a crazy thing to do if you are pretty sure you will need/want the insurance for the rest of your life. If you aren't sure, then you are paying a bunch of your investment money for insurance you might decide you don't need (and in fact, you definitely won't need financially once you have self-funded).
If you are convinced that cryonics is a good investment, and don't have the money to fund it out of current capital, then that seems like a good reason to buy some kind of life insurance, and a universal life policy is probably one of the better ways to do it.
It's probably a bit more expensive than buying term life and investing the difference[1], if you can and will invest reasonably well (it's not actually all that complicated, but it is just enough so to be vulnerable to akrasia problems). Someone who geeks out on financial decisions and doesn't find them uncomfortable or boring work may be better off doing it themselves. Others should go for the UL policy.
If you have the money to fund it, some kind of trust is likely to be a much cheaper option for legal protection than an insurance policy.
[1] there are some tax advantages to investing within the UL that can make it less expensive than term+invest for those who have already maxed out their tax-deferred savings in 401(k)/IRA/etc.