Surveys
Advisors, Investors Still Missing Opportunities To Talk About Family Wealth Issues - Survey
The majority of parents say their children have never met their advisor, and money remains a hugely neglected area of discussion, according to a new survey from MFS.
The majority of parents say their children have never met their advisor, and money remains a hugely neglected area of discussion, according to a new survey from MFS, a Boston-headquartered money manager.
In a survey of 1,033 adults in the US, all of whom had investable non-retirement assets of at least $100,000, three-quarters of parents said their children hadn’t met their advisor. A measly 4 per cent said their children had attended an in-depth planning session with their advisor.
And it seems most advisors aren’t taking the opportunity created by this dearth of discussion, with only 31 per cent of investors saying their advisor has raised the issue of family wealth management with them.
"There's a shared responsibility between advisors and clients not being met. We've stigmatized talking about money, like it was religion or politics," said William Finnegan, senior managing director of global retail marketing for MFS.
Few investors showed much of an interest in discussing the topic with an advisor, with only 14 per cent saying they would like to do so. However, this attitude changed when it came to the subset of respondents who had already talked with an advisor about family wealth management, with 94 per cent saying it had proved helpful.
For advisors, bringing in the next generation as future clients is a business critical issue. Alarmingly though, according to this data set, there appears to be a disconnect between the Baby Boomer generation and their adult children. For instance, in a survey of 588 advisors, MFS found that only 68 per cent said their Boomer clients were bringing in their heirs to discussions about inheritance. Meanwhile, in the investor survey, many parents said they were unsure whether their children were working with an advisor of their own.
“Advisors willing to reach out to the adult children of their clients can play a key role in guiding multiple generations of investors and protecting a family's legacy of financial health,” said Finnegan.