narayan
If we’re to take stock in a new survey put out by Paris-based investment firm Natixis, all the hair-pulling over financial advisors keeping clients amid the great wealth transfer just got even worse.
According to a survey of investors, 66% of baby boomers aged 62 to 80 are more likely to have recently moved or plan to move assets to a new advisor as they make inheritance plans. That compares with 52% of Generation Xers (ages 46-61) and 50% of Millennials (ages 30-45). That movement is partly spurred by baby boomers seeking a new advisor to help them manage decades of retirement savings. But another key factor will be movement by a remaining spouse after one has passed away, according to Dave Goodsell, executive director of the Natixis Center for Investor Insight and report leader.
“When we think of inheritance, it’s easy to envision assets moving from one generation to the next, but the first and most impactful step is when assets pass between spouses,” Goodsell said. “The fact that boomers are most likely to switch advisors shows just how important it is for advisors to have relationships that extend beyond someone who is the primary account holder.”
Natixis pegs the global wealth transfer at more than $84 trillion over the next 20 years, an amount on the low end of some predictions made in the years leading up to and during baby boomers’ prime retirement years.
Financial advisors, according to Goodsell and team, have taken note of the drumbeat to work with more family members than just the primary account holder. In an adjacent survey of 2,700 financial advisors worldwide (300 in the U.S.), Natixis found that 43% are concerned they will not retain the assets when a client’s spouse inherits.
“That’s why when we asked advisors for their best retention strategy, the number one approach was long-term relationship building across the family,” Goodsell said.
Natixis survey, which was conducted by CoreData Research in February and March of 2025, drew on more than 7,000 investors (750 in the U.S.) with at least $100,000 in investable assets. As with most wealth-transfer studies, the news for advisors is two-fold: if you have clients with numerous heirs, try to establish solid relationships with all the constituents. If you are seeking new clients, consider pitching your expertise in managing inheritances.
“Advisors’ ability to build strong relationships across the family may actually be more important to asset retention than their ability to deliver on investment and financial planning goals,” Natixis researchers wrote in the report. “Money-management performance ranks as a top reason for clients staying with the advisor (23%), but it has little to do with why they leave. Only 8% of those surveyed say they are leaving because the advisor didn’t manage their parents’ money well.”
The most common reason an investor switched to a new advisor (29%) was having their own financial advisor. That was followed closely by a lack of connection to their benefactor’s advisor (25%), which was trailed by a lack of trust (13%).
What makes investors stay with their benefactor’s advisor? The most common reason (30%) was that an inheritor already had a relationship with that advisor and trusted their services. That was followed by the money management bucket (23%), with benefactors feeling the advisor did a good job managing funds. A smaller 17% said they’d stay because it would be a cost-effective decision.
While the survey shows some promise for advisors seeking to poach some of the higher-net-worth baby boomer crowd, it piles onto the angst from prior surveys about losing clients to the wealth transfer. Natixis reminded readers that last year’s survey found that 55% of next-generation heirs plan to leave their benefactor’s advisor. In this year’s report, advisors seem to have gotten the message. The headline of the press release summarizing the report states: 40% of financial advisors see the wealth transfer as an “existential threat” to their business.
Among those advisors surveyed, a pretty large 33% said they had firsthand experience of losing assets due to generational attrition. But since they were answering the survey as financial advisors, the effect presumably did not hit that “existential level.”
Financial advisors do seem aware of what needs to be done. The majority (76%) say the most important step in retaining assets through a spouse or heir is building a long-term relationship. The second-most-cited step (54%) was offering wealth management-related services such as estate planning, trust services, and insurance.
“Advisors who fail to engage spouses and heirs early risk losing assets, while those who connect and adapt to evolving investor expectations have a significant opportunity to strengthen relationships and grow their practice,” Goodsell said.
Advisors seem to have also gotten that message over the years of surveys and headlines. Overall, 82% of financial advisors said they are actively engaged in family wealth planning talks with older clients, and 81% say they are comfortable asking for introductions to next-generation heirs.
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