You are a member. The one thing left is to make sure the large amount, around 200,000 EUR for whole-body or 75,000 EUR for brain-only, is ready at the exact moment it is needed and not a day later. This is the step people quietly dread, because the number is large and the instinct is that large numbers must come from savings. They do not. Almost nobody funds cryopreservation out of pocket. The standard tool is insurance, which is to say you convert a frightening lump sum into a small, predictable monthly cost, the same trick you already use for every other catastrophe you cannot self-insure against.
There are five funding routes, and they are not equal. Here they are in roughly the order members actually choose them, with the honest tradeoffs.
Term-life insurance: what most members choose, and why
You take out an ordinary term-life policy, for 10, 20, or 30 years, or running until age 65 to 80, and you name Tomorrow Biostasis GmbH as the beneficiary for the exact preservation amount. If something happens while the policy is active, the insurer pays us directly and the case is fully funded. This is the most popular route for a simple reason: it is the cheapest way to cover a large sum, because you are buying pure coverage with no savings component attached. The full mechanics, and the difference from the next option, are laid out in term and whole life insurance.
Whole-life insurance: durable but pricier
Whole-life never expires and builds a small savings value over time, but the monthly premiums are substantially higher than term, because you are paying for both coverage and a savings vehicle. Most people pick this only if they wanted that kind of policy anyway for other reasons. If your goal is purely to fund preservation at the lowest monthly cost, term usually wins.
Discretionary trust: UK only
In the United Kingdom, a properly structured discretionary trust can hold a life-insurance policy or cash and pay us when the time comes. It is tax-efficient and flexible over very long horizons. It also has a feature the others lack: remaining money can keep growing inside the trust. If revival ever happens, there is something waiting for the future version of you. This sits inside the broader topic of wealth management for cryopreservation.
Pre-payment or direct payment: special cases only
If a doctor has indicated there is likely less than a year left, or the situation is already urgent, you or your family can pay us directly. Insurance underwriting takes time that a terminal diagnosis does not leave, so this is the one situation where we accept money up front instead of a policy or trust. Insurance underwriting takes time that a terminal diagnosis does not leave, so this is one of two situations where we accept money up front instead of a policy or trust. The other is when insurance is not available at all: age or an existing condition can put a policy out of reach, and in that case we take payment directly as well. We understand how hard that moment is, and we work to make the process as easy as possible for everyone involved. It is the exception, not the default.
Alternative: everything else, with one hard limit
If none of the above fits, you choose "Alternative" in the form and we get on a call to see whether your arrangement works. There is exactly one method we cannot accept: funding through a last will. Money from wills arrives too slowly and carries too much legal risk. The timing is fatal to the whole enterprise. We must pay 120,000 EUR into the Patient Care Trust the moment a case begins, long before any will is settled. Of the 200,000 EUR, that 120,000 EUR is the long-term storage share, which the Trust holds and draws on for liquid nitrogen, maintenance, and the facility itself. The remaining 80,000 EUR pays for the one-time work: cryoprotection, materials and equipment, transport, cooldown, and quality assurance. The deeper reasoning for that refusal is in why family-funded preservation at death is risky. The general picture is in general funding methods.
The goal is not to have 200,000 EUR. The goal is to make sure 200,000 EUR arrives the instant it is needed. That is why insurance, not savings and never a will, is how almost everyone funds this.
Pick the method that is easiest for your situation, and we will guide you through the rest. Most members are done in a single afternoon of paperwork. If you have questions, you can always book a call or email us through the contact page, and our team will help you choose between term, whole-life, or one of the rarer routes. The point of all this machinery is unglamorous and reassuring: when the moment comes, the money is simply there, and nobody you love has to scramble for it.