Preparing Your Family for the Great Wealth Transfer

American families are in the middle of the largest wealth transfer ever recorded. It is projected that over $124 trillion will change hands between generations through 2048, with over $105 trillion passing directly to heirs and $18 trillion going to charity.1 On Long Island, that wealth rarely sits in cash. It lives in a home bought decades ago, a business built over a lifetime, and retirement accounts that compounded for 40 years. The wealth is real. Whether it arrives intact is another question.

A Transfer Most Families Have Not Planned For

The scale is hard to overstate. Nearly $100 trillion of the projected transfer will come from baby boomers and older generations, and $54 trillion will pass first between spouses, much of it to widows, before it ever reaches the children.¹ Over the next 10 years alone, Gen X stands to inherit $14 trillion, and millennials will inherit the most over the full horizon at nearly $46 trillion.² Preparation has not kept pace. Only 24% of Americans have a will, down from 33% in 2022, and more than 40% of those without one say they simply have not gotten around to it.³ When no plan exists, state intestacy law decides who inherits, and the Surrogate’s Court supervises the outcome instead of a trustee the family chose.

The stakes compound across generations. One widely cited industry study of 3,200 families found that 70% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the 2nd generation and 90% by the 3rd, and traced 60% of those failures to breakdowns in family communication and trust rather than poor investing.⁴ Researchers have challenged that study’s methodology, but the pattern holds in academic work as well. A census-record analysis found that 85% of families in the top 0.1% of wealth holders fell out of that group within a decade.⁵ Family business succession presents a similar challenge: roughly 30% survive to the 2nd generation, 12% to the 3rd, and 3% to the 4th.⁶

Where the Handoff Breaks Down

Probate can add significant legal, administrative, and carrying costs and can take months or, in more complicated estates, considerably longer. On Long Island, estates move through the Nassau County Surrogate’s Court in Mineola or the Suffolk County Surrogate’s Court in Riverhead, and carrying costs on an inherited home accrue the entire time: property taxes, insurance, utilities, maintenance.

Illiquidity is the second. Much of this generation’s wealth concentrates in real estate and closely held businesses, assets that resist division among heirs. Without a plan, families face forced sales at unfavorable prices or disputes that outlast the estate itself.

Communication failure is the third and largest. Heirs who never saw the plan, never met the advisors, and never understood the purpose behind the wealth rarely keep it. It is reported that 89% of advisory firms identify regular family meetings as a leading practice for preserving wealth across generations.¹ Few families ever hold them.

Building a Plan That Survives the Transfer

A will directs assets but does not avoid probate. A properly funded revocable living trust can allow assets held in the trust to pass outside the Surrogate’s Court process, keeping the transfer private, and establishing a successor trustee in place immediately. Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance generally control who receives those assets, rather than the instructions in the will, making them an important part of any estate-plan review. Titling choices, from joint ownership to transfer on death registrations, determine whether an asset passes automatically or through the estate. Family governance completes the structure: regular family meetings, a written purpose for the wealth, and defined roles for the next generation address the communication failures that sink most transfers.

A Coordinated Approach to Generational Wealth

Most professional advice arrives in silos. Legal advice comes from the law firm, tax advice from the accountant, and investment advice from the wealth manager, and the estate plan only works when all 3 align. Strata Alliance brings everything together. Our multi-family office coordinates estate planning, aligns investment and tax strategy, and manages family real estate, all under one roof with our trusted partners.

If your family is preparing to pass wealth to the next generation, contact Strata Alliance to learn how our coordinated family office approach can help.

Endnotes

1. Cerulli Associates, “Cerulli Anticipates $124 Trillion in Wealth Will Transfer Through 2048,” Dec. 5, 2024, https://www.cerulli.com/press-releases/cerulli-anticipates-124-trillion-in-wealth-will-transfer-through-2048.
2. Merrill, “The Great Wealth Transfer: How It Could Impact You,” https://www.ml.com/articles/great-wealth-transfer-impact.html.
3. Caring.com, “2025 Wills and Estate Planning Study,” https://www.caring.com/resources/wills-survey.
4. The Williams Group 20-year study of 3,200 families, as reported in AdvisorHub, “Securing the Family Tree: How to Preserve Generational Wealth,” https://www.advisorhub.com/resources/securing-the-family-tree-how-to-preserve-generational-wealth/. Some researchers have questioned the study’s published methodology.
5. Priti Kalsi and Zachary Ward, census-record research as reported in InvestmentNews, “What History Says About the Fleeting Fortunes of America’s Wealthiest Families,” https://www.investmentnews.com/practice-management/what-history-says-about-the-fleeting-fortunes-of-americas-wealthiest-families/259420.
6. Family Business Institute data, as reported in Worth, “The $84 Trillion Wealth Transfer: Will Your Fortune Last?” https://worth.com/84-trillion-wealth-transfer-will-your-familys-wealth-last-or-disappear/.
7. LegalZoom, “Estate Planning Statistics,” https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/estate-planning-statistics.