About 70% of participants in a new survey from Wealth, an estate planning platform, said that they want to pass wealth down to their loved ones. However, only about half (53%) have an estate plan. And only about a third (32%) say they have a will in place.
Think Advisor’s recent article entitled “Nearly Half of Families Earning $100K or More Lack an Estate Plan: Survey” reports that the survey found that people of color, in particular, face accessibility barriers. This group is 14% less likely to have a plan in place than their counterparts in the sample.
Wealth’s findings were based on a survey conducted in the U.S. by WALR in partnership with Manifest in the last two weeks of last year among 10,000 employed respondents ages 30 to 55 with a household income of more than $100,000.
The survey results showed that the main factor keeping people from securing their financial legacy is the notion that estate planning should be done in the future rather than now — possibly because 45% of respondents said they avoid thinking about death.
Another misperception is that planning is only for the very wealthy: 42% of survey participants said they don’t own anything valuable and as a reason they do not have a plan, and 30% said they don’t have enough money.
Wealth said it behooves employers to make employees aware of estate planning in their benefits packages.
Just 13% of the sample said they receive estate planning as an employee benefit.
About 72% of the respondents who don’t have a plan said they’d be more likely to create a will if the services were offered by their employer.
The survey found that 40% haven’t gotten around to setting up a plan, although 70% say they eventually will do it and about 45% say that they actively avoid thinking about death (especially men and 51% of millennials). Almost half (45%) also think it’s inappropriate to talk about money with friends, missing out on valuable financial advice.
Reference: Think Advisor (March 29, 2022) “Nearly Half of Families Earning $100K or More Lack an Estate Plan: Survey”
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