Years of financial planning can leave behind piles of legal documents, including trusts, beneficiary forms and powers of attorney.
Completing all of these steps still leaves most wealthy Americans unprepared for what comes next, according to a September 2026 research note from Fidelity Investments.
Research has uncovered an overlooked factor that consistently separates the most confident families from those who complete the same paperwork but still feel uneasy.
Resolving this matter requires no additional legal documents, no amendments to existing documents, and no fees to any attorneys or consultants.
Also read: Fidelity reveals hidden threats to generational wealth
Only 37% of seniors are confident in their plans
The Fidelity study surveyed 654 married or partnered Americans age 55 and older who have a net worth of at least $500,000 and have at least one adult child.
Only 37% of respondents said they were very comfortable with their overall estate and financial planning, a surprisingly low number for a group that has already drafted a will, established a trust or named beneficiaries.
Wealth alone does not boost confidence levels, with research showing the wealthiest households are no less anxious about their plans than those with smaller portfolios.
More than 4 in 10 respondents with a net worth of more than $5 million reported only moderate or low comfort with their estate plans.
Respondents who expressed strong confidence shared one characteristic that held true regardless of net worth, portfolio size or complexity of legal documents.
Fidelity describes these families as having a high level of “transition readiness,” a measure that combines a complete plan, shared conversations and clearly defined family roles.
The study found that these families were four times more likely than other families to express a high degree of confidence and five times more likely to feel comfortable with their estate plans.
Julie Huerta, senior wealth advisor and certified financial planner at Vanguard Group, warns that families who delay sharing plans often underestimate the damage that silence does to those who should benefit from these plans.
Most parents or grandparents hope to share their plans “someday,” but that day may come later than they expect, or later than their heirs need… Silence does not protect loved ones. It can leave doubts, resentments and broken relationships long after assets have been transferred,
Estate documents record the content of decisions but do not make the people named in the documents aware of the responsibilities, timelines and rationale behind those decisions.
Families who closed this gap by communicating directly about their plans did so, and the shift in confidence they experienced became one of the study’s most telling findings.
Why most families avoid the most important conversations
The study’s most revealing data concerned what families didn’t do when they made plans. About a third of parents said they had never openly discussed future plans with their adult children.
Among those who avoid such discussions, the most common reason is not knowing how to start a conversation.
Other parents said they believed they had discussed enough, while some would rather wait until later in life to share details of plans.
These avoidance patterns persisted across income levels and even among households that had completed all standard planning documents.
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Research also exposes a huge gap between parents’ assumptions and what they actually prepare their children to cope with.
Research shows that nearly two-thirds of parents trust their adult children to take on household financial responsibilities, yet only 21% tell these children about their complete estate plans.
Research confirms that parents who share completed plans with their families are more than three times more likely to feel confident in their plans.
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Decades of Research Reinforce Fidelity’s Conclusions on Trust and Communication
Fidelity’s findings are consistent with decades of research tracking the outcomes of wealth transfers.
Roy Williams, founder of The Williams Group, and his co-researcher Vic Preisser conducted a 20-year study of 3,250 wealthy families and found that 70% of wealth transfers failed in the second generation and 90% failed in the third generation.
Research shows that 60% of transition failures are due to communication and trust issues, while ill-prepared heirs account for another 25%.
Tax, legal and all other non-family reasons combined account for only 15% of failures, upending the common assumption that tax planning and portfolio management determine whether family wealth is passed down from generation to generation.
Both the Fidelity data and the Williams Group study describe the same pattern that repeats across generations, income levels and financial sophistication.
The conversations, role definitions, and shared understanding that determine whether an estate plan will survive a real transition consistently receive the least attention from the families who draft the plan.
How to create a conversation about protecting intergenerational wealth
For families preparing to make any kind of wealth transformation, evidence from decades of research by both Fidelity and The Williams Group points to a specific set of actions.
Fidelity recommends starting with a specific conversation: Asking each family member how confident they feel about the existing plan and what concerns they want to raise before they become a point of friction.
The study also urges families to clarify early on who will manage finances, provide care and handle future health or legal decisions. Assumptions about these roles often differ by generational differences and often manifest themselves as conflicts during a real transformation process.
The Williams Group’s research adds a sense of urgency to all readers who have completed these documents but have not yet discussed them with the people named in the documents.
Fidelity recommends working with a licensed financial advisor to facilitate these conversations while developing beneficiary-designated technical planning and tax-efficient transfer strategies.
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