I'll summarize then. Your point, if I have it correctly, is that there are risks in everything. In this case, lets's say you take 50% of your pension and you die after six months, it was the greatest investment you could have made, because you paid $12,000 and the survivor got $1,000 per month for the next 30 years.
The flip side of it is that, if you pay into that for 25 years—you start at 65 and live to 90—you see zero of that. In that case, it's really the worst investment you could have made, because you have put money aside and see no interest and no return on that.
Do I have a fair summary there?