If you’ve begun exploring the world of Cryonics Revival Trusts, you’ve probably encountered the usual players: trustees, beneficiaries, legal documents, and investment strategies. But there’s one key role that may not be as familiar—yet it may be the most important of all.
That role is the Trust Protector.
In a traditional trust, the trustee holds and manages the assets according to the instructions laid out by the person who created the trust (you, the Trustmaker). But cryonics isn’t a traditional endeavor. It asks a trust to do something that’s never been done before: stay active and relevant for possibly hundreds of years, while waiting for future technologies to achieve what science cannot yet do today—revive a legally dead person.
This unprecedented challenge calls for an equally novel solution: a Trust Protector who can adapt, defend, and guide the trust across time.
What Is a Trust Protector?
A Trust Protector is a person or committee granted special authority to oversee and modify the trust, especially after the death or incapacity of the trustmaker. Their job is not to manage assets (that’s the Trustee’s job), but to ensure the trust continues to fulfill its intended purpose—even if laws, technologies, or circumstances change over decades or centuries.
In the context of a cryonics trust, the Trust Protector functions like a legal guardian for your future self—acting on your behalf while you are suspended, and safeguarding your trust’s ability to support your revival and reintegration.
Why Is a Trust Protector So Important in Cryonics?
Unlike traditional trusts, a cryonics trust faces unique risks and evolving scenarios. The Trust Protector serves as a flexible, forward-thinking counterweight to these long-term uncertainties.
Here’s what makes them essential:
1. Guarding Your Purpose Across Generations
After your legal death, there’s no way for you to update your trust. That’s a problem if:
- New technologies emerge that require funding or enable revival,
- Your cryonics provider changes name, merges, or ceases to exist,
- Laws affecting trusts or cryonics shift in your state or jurisdiction.
A Trust Protector can amend the trust to reflect new realities while preserving your original intent.
2. Overseeing and Controlling the Trustee
Even the best trustees may lose touch with your goals over time. The Trust Protector can:
- Remove and replace a trustee,
- Add co-trustees for additional oversight,
- Correct course if the trustee becomes too conservative, unresponsive, or deviates from the mission.
This built-in check ensures no one can quietly mismanage your assets over decades of dormancy.
3. Authorizing and Timing Your Revival
Most cryonics trusts grant the Trust Protector—not the trustee—sole authority to determine:
- Whether revival is possible or advisable,
- Which entity or team is qualified to attempt it,
- What constitutes “successful revival” in medical and legal terms,
- Whether to release funds for revival and rehabilitation efforts.
Without a Trust Protector, there’s no human judgment in the loop—only rigid legal instructions frozen in time.
4. Handling the Unexpected
What if your cryonics organization folds? What if AI or biotechnology creates new ethical questions? What if society’s laws change dramatically?
The Trust Protector can:
- Redefine ambiguous terms like “reanimation” or “consciousness,”
- Interpret vague or obsolete language in your trust.
- Identify a successor cryonics provider,
- Redirect funds to new research organizations,
5. Serving as Your Voice When You Can’t Speak
While you’re suspended, the Trust Protector:
- Verifies you are still in cryopreservation,
- Receives updates from your cryonics provider,
- Authorizes legal and financial support for lawsuits or protective measures,
- Makes post-revival decisions if you are cognitively impaired.
In effect, they serve as your agent, advocate, and ethical proxy.
What Makes a Good Trust Protector?
Because this is such a unique role, a family member or friend won’t be the best choice. A good Trust Protector for a cryonics trust should be:
- Legally and ethically independent (not a beneficiary or related party),
- Knowledgeable about cryonics, biotechnology, and revival strategies,
- Able to serve for decades,
- Selected by or in cooperation with your cryonics organization, to align incentives.
Looking Ahead at the Cryonics Institute
The Cryonics Institute (CI) is actively reviewing the Trust Protector model as part of its long-term planning for members. We have already shared the framework with over twenty interested members, and their response has been strongly supportive. If approved by CI’s Board, this model will not only guide the protection of individual revival trusts but also become available to every CI member who wishes to safeguard their future through a legally robust structure.
This represents a major step forward. Instead of each cryonicist struggling to reinvent the wheel with private attorneys, CI members could participate in a standardized and professionally managed system—backed by oversight, continuity, and the shared strength of our community.
Final Thoughts
A cryonics trust is your lifeline to a hypothetical future. The Trust Protector is the hand at the wheel. They stand guard while the centuries pass, acting not just as a legal safeguard, but as a practical and philosophical steward of your intent, your assets, and your personhood.
With CI’s adoption of this model, the Trust Protector role will no longer be a distant legal abstraction—it will be a living institution, protecting members as a group while honoring each individual’s intent. If you believe you may one day be revived, you owe it to yourself to ensure that someone competent and compassionate is there—watching over your trust until you can wake up and take the reins yourself.
About the Author:
Steve LeBel is a retired hospital CEO and an advocate for cryonics preparedness and planning. He is signed up with the Cryonics Institute and works to bridge the gap between end-of-life care and timely cryopreservation.
Steve LeBel Bio
steve@stevelebel.com
https://stevelebel.com