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Written by: Jennifer Raess, JD, CFP®, CLU®, Product Counsel at Vanilla
You've worked with this client for 20 years. You've heard about their daughter's college graduation, their son's job change, their grandchild's first birthday. You've been there through market volatility, a divorce, a health scare, and three different estate plan updates. You feel like you know this family.
Their kids, though? They know their parents "work with someone." That's often the full extent of it.
When the wealth transfer happens — and it will — you're not continuing a relationship with those heirs. You're introducing yourself. To someone grieving. Under time pressure. With real financial and legal decisions to navigate, many of them immediately. That's not a relationship-building environment. It's an audition.
The data reflects this plainly: according to the InspereX 2025 Advisor Pulse Outlook, most advisors (57%) admit they don’t yet have relationships with the children of most of their clients.
The answer isn't a formal "meet the kids" initiative or a new service offering. It's recognizing that the planning work already being done for clients contains natural entry points for involving the next generation. These are moments that create immediate value for the current client while quietly building the familiarity that makes continuity possible.
Two conversations in particular stand out. One is time-sensitive and easy to miss. The other is the meeting most advisors know they should have but keep putting off. Both are simpler to start than most advisors expect.
Conversation 1: The 18th Birthday and planning gap hiding in plain sight
Most advisors don't think of a client's child turning 18 as a planning event. It should be one of the first things on the calendar.
When a child reaches the age of majority, parents lose legal authority to access their child's financial accounts, communicate with institutions on their behalf, or make healthcare decisions for them — without specific authorization documents in place. HIPAA protections apply. Bank accounts are legally sealed. If a college-age child is in a medical emergency, a parent may have no legal ability to act — even while still paying that child's tuition, covering them on the family health plan, and claiming them as a tax dependent.
This is a real and recurring gap. It happens quietly every fall as clients' kids head off to campus, and most families simply aren't prepared for it. Not because they're negligent, but because it doesn't feel urgent until it suddenly is.
What matters from an advisor's perspective isn't the document list. It's what this moment represents.
Why this is an advisor opportunity
The advisor who surfaces this gap proactively — and helps resolve it — creates something rare: immediate, tangible relief for the current client.
In many cases, this is one of the few planning recommendations that produces a visible sense of relief almost as soon as it's implemented. The client gains the practical assurance that their child has protection in place, and that they can step in to help if something happens.
For the heir, the dynamic is equally meaningful. Their first real experience with the advisor is receiving a planning deliverable that directly affects their own life. That's a different kind of introduction.
How to act on this now
This doesn't require a new process. Advisors can move on it immediately with a few targeted steps:
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Scan your client list and flag any children turning 18 in the next 12 months
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Frame the outreach as a proactive family planning moment
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Position the initial conversation around the child's transition to independence — what changes for them legally, what they need to have in place — rather than leading with the parent's plan
The conversation fits naturally alongside other milestone check-ins and doesn't require the client to share anything they weren't already comfortable sharing.
Conversation 2: Preparing Heirs for their Future Roles. The meeting many advisors keep putting off.
At some point, the people named in a client's estate plan need to understand what they've been named to do. Successor trustees, executors, agents under power of attorney — these roles carry real responsibilities, real discretion, and in many cases real tax and financial consequences that need to be navigated quickly. And yet the individuals assigned to them are typically the last to know what's expected.
Most advisors know a family planning conversation should happen. Most keep waiting for the client to bring it up. The client keeps waiting for the advisor to suggest it. By the time it happens, if it happens, it's often too late for the conversation to do much good.
The single biggest obstacle to this meeting is client hesitation around financial disclosure. Many clients don't want to "talk about money with the kids."They're worried about motivation, family dynamics, expectations about inheritance. And that worry is legitimate. But it's also based on a misunderstanding of what this meeting needs to be.
The conversation isn't "here's what you're inheriting." It's "here's the role we've named you to serve, here's what it requires, and here's how we'll support you when the time comes."
Framing the meeting as preparation — not disclosure — changes the client's calculus entirely. Most clients who resist a financial transparency conversation will welcome a readiness conversation. The goal shifts from sharing information to building confidence. That's a meeting almost every client will agree to have.
Setting up the meeting with the client first
Advisors should work with the client in advance to align on what they're comfortable covering — and what's off the table for now, what the objective of the conversation actually is and how they want it framed to the heirs going in.
Starting with a high-level, primarily educational meeting — with the understanding that more detail can be introduced later as trust and comfort build — gives the client control over the process. That sense of control is usually what's been missing, and establishing it upfront is what gets the meeting on the calendar.
It also helps to prepare the client for how the conversation might feel. For many families, this is genuinely the first time these topics have been discussed at any level.
The Bigger Picture
Retaining the next generation is a planning problem and the planning work already being done contains most of the solution.
The 18th birthday conversation creates immediate value for the current client and opens the first direct relationship with the heir. And the family governance meeting gives heirs the context they need to carry out the plan as intended rather than figure it out under pressure.
None of this requires a new service model, a dedicated nextgen practice, or a separate engagement track. It requires using what's already there — the documents, the tools, the conversations — more deliberately.
The great wealth transfer is happening whether advisors engage with it or not. The difference between retaining assets across generations and losing them often comes down to something simpler than performance or planning quality. It’s whether the next generation knew the advisor before they needed one.
(Disclaimer)
The information provided here does not constitute legal, financial, or tax advice. It is provided for general informational purposes only. This information may not be updated or reflect changes in law. Please consult with an estate attorney, financial advisor, or tax professional who can advise as to your particular situation.
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