通过搜索发现“保护信托”对应英文表达应为“protective trust”，并未查到“protection trust”的单独表达，而常见的为“asset-protection trust”（An asset-protection trust is any form of trust which provides for funds to be held on a discretionary basis. Such trusts are set up in an attempt to avoid or mitigate the effects of taxation, divorce and bankruptcy on the beneficiary. Such trusts are therefore frequently proscribed or limited in their effects by governments and the courts.）

所谓的保护信托，其实是家族信托的一种，是为了保护家族财产能够安全的继承下去，主要是针对信托委托人的某个子女可能浪费成性、在财产管理等事务方面缺乏经验、甚至有些不争气，比如败家。委托人很清楚，如果将财产交给这样的子女，财产很快就消失殆尽了。

保护信托主要存在于英国，其和美国和一些欧洲地区的“防挥霍信托”（spendthrift trust）异曲同工，作用相同。

另附保护信托的英文释义：The Protective Trust is a form of settlement found in England and Wales and several Commonwealth countries. It has marked similarities to asset-protection trusts found in several offshore jurisdictions and US Spendthrift trusts.

In such a trust assets are ordinarily held to pay an income to the beneficiary. The beneficiary may also have access to capital of the trust with the trustee's permission. The right to receive income from a trust would ordinarily be an asset in the hands of the beneficiary and could be sold, thwarting the intention of the donor to spread the gift over the recipient's lifetime. Additionally on a bankruptcy the right to the income would be sold by the beneficiary's trustee in bankruptcy.