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Design and Oversight of Trusts Aligned with Your Goals
Revocable and irrevocable trust structures coordinated with family, philanthropic, and asset protection objectives — working alongside your trustees and legal counsel.
Wealth Management Solutions
Explore each discipline within our integrated wealth management platform. Select any service below to preview our approach — then visit the full page for a deeper look.
Trusts Aren't Just Legal Documents — They're Living Strategies
A trust is one of the most powerful tools in wealth management — but only if it's properly designed, fully funded, and actively managed. Too often, trusts are drafted by an attorney, signed, and then forgotten. Assets never get retitled. Beneficiary designations conflict with the trust's instructions. Investment decisions inside the trust have no connection to the grantor's broader financial plan.
At Bull Run Investment Management, we handle the full lifecycle of trust services — from initial design and attorney coordination with Bobby Feisee, Esq. at InSight Law, through funding, investment management, tax coordination, and ongoing administration. Whether you need a simple revocable trust to avoid probate or a complex multi-generational dynasty trust, we ensure every trust is integrated with your investment strategy, tax plan, and estate goals.
Already have a trust? We review existing structures for gaps, misalignment, and missed opportunities — then coordinate with your attorney to make adjustments as needed.
InSight Law
& transfer assets
SMA strategies
Coordination
Management
Communication
Trust Types We Design, Fund & Manage
Every trust serves a specific purpose — probate avoidance, tax reduction, creditor protection, charitable impact, or generational wealth transfer. We match the right structure to your goals, then manage every aspect from funding through distribution.
Revocable Living Trusts
The foundation of most estate plans. A revocable trust lets you maintain full control of your assets during your lifetime, avoid probate at death, and provide seamless management if you become incapacitated. Can be amended or revoked at any time.
Irrevocable Trusts
Permanently removes assets from your taxable estate. Commonly used to lock in the current estate tax exemption before the TCJA sunset, shield assets from creditors, and provide structured distributions to beneficiaries over time. Once established, the trust is a separate legal entity.
Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts
A SLAT allows one spouse to gift assets into an irrevocable trust while the other spouse retains indirect access as a beneficiary. Ideal for couples looking to reduce their combined estate while preserving a financial safety net. Often used in pairs with reciprocal trusts.
GRATs & QPRTs
Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts transfer appreciation out of your estate while you retain an annuity stream. Qualified Personal Residence Trusts do the same for your home. Both are powerful tools for moving high-growth assets at a reduced gift tax cost.
Dynasty & Spendthrift Trusts
Dynasty trusts can compound wealth across multiple generations without incurring additional estate or generation-skipping transfer tax at each level. Spendthrift provisions protect beneficiaries from creditors and their own spending habits by placing a third party in control of distributions.
Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts
An ILIT owns your life insurance policy outside your taxable estate. At death, the proceeds pass to trust beneficiaries completely free of estate and income tax — providing liquidity for estate taxes, debt payoff, or wealth transfer without inflating your estate value.
Charitable Remainder & Lead Trusts
CRTs provide you with an income stream while ultimately benefiting a charity — generating an immediate tax deduction. CLTs do the opposite: the charity receives income first, and the remainder passes to heirs at a reduced transfer tax cost. Both are powerful philanthropic and tax planning tools.
Special Needs & Supplemental Trusts
Designed to provide financial support for a beneficiary with a disability without disqualifying them from government benefits like Medicaid and SSI. We coordinate with attorneys to structure distributions that enhance quality of life while preserving eligibility.
Custodial & Minor's Trusts
Trusts established to hold and manage assets on behalf of minor children until they reach a specified age. We invest and manage the assets according to the trust's terms, ensuring the funds are available when the child reaches the age of distribution — not before.
What BRIM Handles in Trust Services
We're not just the investment manager inside the trust — we're the central coordinator. From the moment a trust is conceived through decades of administration, we manage the financial strategy and ensure every moving part stays aligned.
Trust Design & Coordination
We work with Bobby Feisee, Esq. to determine the right trust structure for your goals — then coordinate the drafting, review, and execution of documents. If you have an existing attorney, we collaborate with them directly.
Funding & Retitling
The most common failure point. We retitle accounts, update beneficiary designations, and transfer assets into the trust — ensuring the legal structure and the financial reality match. An unfunded trust is a useless trust.
Investment Management Within Trusts
We manage trust assets using our proprietary SMA strategies — with investment decisions tailored to the trust's purpose, distribution timeline, tax profile, and beneficiary needs. Fiduciary obligations within the trust are taken seriously and documented.
Tax Coordination & Reporting
Trust taxation is complex — income distributed to beneficiaries is taxed differently than income retained. We coordinate with Brian Wendroff, CPA to optimize distribution timing, manage DNI (distributable net income), and prepare fiduciary returns.
Distribution & Beneficiary Management
We oversee distributions according to the trust's terms — mandatory or discretionary — and maintain clear communication with beneficiaries about the trust's purpose, their rights, and how distributions work. Transparency reduces family conflict.
Ongoing Review & Adaptation
Tax laws change. Families grow. Circumstances shift. We review every trust annually alongside your financial plan and recommend amendments, decanting, or restructuring when the original design no longer serves your goals.
How We Bring a Trust to Life
Designing a trust is step one. Funding it, investing it, administering it, and keeping it aligned with your evolving life — that's where the real work happens. Here's how we manage the full lifecycle.
Goals & Structure Assessment
We start with your objectives — probate avoidance, estate tax reduction, creditor protection, charitable giving, special needs planning, or generational transfer. Then we determine the right trust type and coordinate with Bobby Feisee, Esq. (or your own attorney) to begin drafting.
Document Execution & Funding
Once documents are signed, we handle the critical step most firms skip — actually funding the trust. We retitle Schwab accounts, update beneficiary designations, transfer real estate deeds, and ensure every asset intended for the trust is properly owned by it.
Investment Strategy & Implementation
We design and implement an investment strategy tailored to the trust's purpose, timeline, and tax profile. Irrevocable trusts hit the highest tax brackets quickly — so asset location, tax-loss harvesting, and distribution timing are especially important inside trust structures.
Administration & Distributions
We manage ongoing trust operations — executing distributions per the trust's terms, coordinating with trustees, maintaining records, and ensuring compliance with fiduciary obligations. Brian Wendroff, CPA handles fiduciary tax returns (Form 1041) and K-1 preparation for beneficiaries.
Annual Review & Adaptation
We review every trust annually alongside your broader financial plan. If tax law changes, family circumstances shift, or the trust no longer serves its intended purpose, we coordinate amendments, trust decanting, or restructuring with your attorney.
Why Investment Management Inside a Trust Matters
Trusts have unique tax characteristics that demand a different investment approach. Irrevocable trusts, for example, reach the highest federal income tax bracket at just $14,450 in income (2024) — compared to over $600,000 for individuals. That means every dollar of realized gain, interest, or dividend inside an undistributed trust is taxed at the maximum rate.
This creates a compelling case for active management inside trusts. Tax-loss harvesting, strategic distribution timing, asset location between trust and non-trust accounts, and selecting tax-efficient investment vehicles aren't nice-to-haves — they're essential to preserving the trust's value for its beneficiaries.
We manage trust portfolios using the same proprietary SMA strategies we use for individual accounts — Innovation, Growth, Core, and Low Volatility — with allocations tailored to the trust's specific objectives, distribution timeline, and tax profile. Every investment decision inside the trust is documented to meet fiduciary standards.
Trust Services Require a Coordinated Team
A trust touches legal, tax, investment, and family dynamics simultaneously. We serve as the central hub — coordinating every professional involved to ensure the trust operates as intended and evolves with your life.
Why Most Trusts Fail to Deliver
The Unfunded Trust
- ✕ Attorney drafts the trust — but nobody retitles accounts or transfers assets into it
- ✕ Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and insurance conflict with trust terms
- ✕ Investments inside the trust are generic — no consideration for compressed trust tax brackets
- ✕ No coordination between attorney, CPA, and investment advisor on distributions or tax strategy
- ✕ Trust document sits in a drawer for years — never reviewed, never updated
A Fully Managed Trust Strategy
- ✓ Every account retitled, every asset transferred, every designation verified at funding
- ✓ Beneficiary designations audited annually and aligned with trust instructions
- ✓ Tax-aware investing with harvesting, DNI optimization, and NIIT management inside the trust
- ✓ Bobby, Brian, and Chris in constant coordination on every distribution and tax decision
- ✓ Annual review with amendments, decanting, or restructuring as life and law change
Ready to Put Your Trust to Work?
Whether you need to create a new trust, review an existing one, or invest assets inside a trust structure, schedule a complimentary consultation. We'll assess your goals, identify the right structure, and coordinate every step from design through ongoing administration.