Why half of wealthy families still don't have a complete wealth transfer plan: BNY Wealth

Advisors working on the so-called “Great Wealth Transfer ” should expect to find extremely varied levels of preparation from their clients, according to the latest research from BNY Wealth.

BNY Wealth's 2026 “Wealth in Motion” study surveyed over 500 ultra-high net worth families with net assets of $10 million and above and offers another perspective on how the Great Wealth Transfer will play out. 

The wealth management industry, for decades, has expected this to be a sweeping event as assets pass from older generations, the research notes. But, instead, the process has been slower and more complex than expected, largely as a result of longer lifespans, especially among UHNW individuals with better healthcare and nutrition, according to BNY Wealth.

The shifting realities of the Great Wealth Transfer

“We've been talking about this Great Wealth Transfer, the silver tsunami, for a long time,” Alvina Lo, head of advice, planning and fiduciary services at BNY Wealth, told InvestmentNews. “I think the great wealth transfer is still happening, but the way people are thinking about the 'when' and the 'how' is shifting.”

BNY Wealth urges clients to be proactive and do the planning for a transfer as early as possible. Planning in advance means that the transfer can happen earlier, which is a lot more tax advantageous, according to Lo. 

However, BNY Wealth’s study found that, in many cases, the planning is unfinished. More than half of respondents (53%) acknowledged that their plans are not yet fully complete.

Are heirs ready to receive wealth?

“We do see a disconnect between intention and execution,” said Lo, highlighting some of the reasons why the transfer of wealth is not being executed. Only 20% of respondents, for example, said their heirs are very prepared to manage the wealth they receive.

“One of the things that we consistently see, and this report affirms it, is that it's not that people don't have the means to transfer wealth earlier. It's just that they're not doing it because they feel like, despite the wealth level, that the heirs are not ready,” Lo added.

The report also found that older wealth owners, over the age of 45, have more of a concern that the heirs are not ready compared with those under 45.

“Older wealth owners have, I think, a deeper appreciation for family dynamics and what the challenges of wealth is,” said Lo. “Whereas those who are under 45 might be only thinking about their heirs as a spouse, or young children that they have yet to mold, but don't understand the reality of what that really is like.”

Wealth transfer timing

There has been a lot of discussion about the scale and the timing of the Great Wealth Transfer. In 2024, for example, Cerulli Associates projected that $124 trillion in wealth will be transferred through 2048. Within that number, nearly $100 trillion will be transferred from Baby Boomers and older generations, according to Cerulli, representing 81% of all transfers.

Visa also found that more families are transferring wealth earlier while they can see its impact. Last week, research from Visa Business and Economic Insights said that after subtracting liabilities and accounting for retirement spending, charitable bequests, taxes and fees, approximately $36 trillion of baby boomers’ $93 trillion in assets will pass to Gen X and millennial heirs over the next 20 years.

BNY Wealth’s study found that there is a clear interest from wealth owners in transferring their assets during their lifetimes, and are planning to transfer a mean of 17% of their wealth over the next five years and 21% in the next 11 to 20 years. However, despite that intent, there is still an expectation that wealth transfer will happen at the end of life, with 55% of total wealth transferred only after the owner has passed away.

The research also found that wealthy families with confidence in their heirs are also willing to put stricter and more formal guardrails in place, including performance or conduct clauses. Minimum age thresholds are the most common guardrail considered or implemented, cited by 46% of respondents. Trustee or advisor review/sign-off was next, at 43%, followed by completion of education or training, at 33%.

A golden opportunity for advisors

Set against this backdrop, the Great Wealth Transfer nonetheless represents a golden opportunity for advisors, according to Lo.

“Advisors I've seen in my career in the last 20-plus years, and supported by this research, shows us that it is not just about the ‘what’ but also the ‘how’,” she said. “These folks have resources that lawyers and accountants and advisors who can explain to them the benefits of transfer and the way to do it.”

But Lo believes that helping clients with the human side of this, in addition to the technical aspects, is really important. “Increasingly we spend more of our time talking about who's going to be involved, who's going to be the trustee of your trust,” she said. “Do you pick your friend, your family member or a corporate trustee and why one might be better than others depending on your situation versus what the trust actually looks like.”

Clearly, for advisors, the takeaway isn't just that the Great Wealth Transfer is arriving on a different timeline than expected – it's that the timeline is theirs to influence. With more than half of families still lacking a completed plan, and heir readiness cited as a big barrier to earlier transfers, the advisors who lean into that conversation now – rather than waiting for a death or liquidity event to force it – are the ones positioned to retain assets across generations rather than lose them at the moment of transfer.

This could mean starting the readiness conversation, not just the transfer conversation, and reframing lifetime giving around control, not just tax savings. Guardrails should also be brought into the initial planning conversation, not as a fallback, and advisors should urge their clients to have the trustee conversation early and explicitly.

Communication, as ever, is key. "The people who are willing to have conversations about wealth actually are more willing to give it away," said Lo. "Because they've had that conversation and they talked about it."