Heirs Likely To Switch Firms

The warning did not come from a regulator or a consultant. It came as a blunt number: 81% of inheritors say they expect to leave their parents’ wealth firm within one to two years of receiving an inheritance. Avagance AI highlighted the figure this week, but the number itself comes from Capgemini’s 2025 World Wealth Report, which surveyed 6,472 high-net-worth investors, including 5,473 “next-gen” clients across the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East (capgemini.com). For wealth managers, that turns succession planning into a retention problem. The timing is awkward in exactly the way the industry has long feared. Capgemini says $83.5 trillion is expected to move to Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z by 2048, with 30% of high-net-worth clients receiving an inheritance by the end of 2030, 63% by 2035, and 84% by 2040 (capgemini.com). In the UK, firms are describing their own version of that handoff in similarly huge terms: Brooks Macdonald says £5.5 trillion is set to change hands from baby boomers to younger generations, with more than £300 billion expected to pass to about 300,000 beneficiaries over the next decade (brooksmacdonald.com). Those two figures—81% ready to switch, trillions ready to move—explain why a routine client review is starting to look like a race against the calendar. A wealth firm may believe it has a decades-long relationship with a family. In practice, it may have a relationship with one person, often the older generation, and only a weak connection to the heirs who will soon control the assets. When the transfer happens, the account can stay in place for a few months out of convenience and then walk. Capgemini’s reporting suggests the heirs are not leaving at random. Many younger clients say they are underwhelmed by the firms their parents use, especially by weak digital tools and thin product shelves (cnbc.com). A separate Capgemini paper on loyalty risk breaks that complaint into pieces: 46% cite a lack of preferred digital channels, 33% say alternative investments are unavailable, and 25% point to inadequate value-added services (capgemini.com). That sounds like a technology story, but it is really a relationship story with a technology test built into it. Capgemini says 71% of advisors report that next-gen high-net-worth clients prefer digital-first service, while 56% say their firms still lack seamless omnichannel and self-serve platforms (marketsgroup.org). The old model was a quarterly meeting, a paper packet, and a trusted family name. The new client wants a dashboard, fast replies, different investment menus, and a sense that the advisor knows them before the estate settles. For advisory firms, especially those trying to calm affluent families during volatile markets, the lesson is less about adding one more app than about widening the conversation before the transfer. If heirs only meet the advisor after a funeral, the firm is already late. The UK numbers make that vivid: Brooks Macdonald notes that the sums expected to be transferred over the next decade exceed the £274 billion currently managed by adviser firms for UK private clients (brooksmacdonald.com). That is not just money changing hands. It is loyalty changing hands too.