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Few heirs keep their parents’ wealth advisors, Cerulli study finds

admin — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 11:47:14 +0000

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A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.

Over the next 25 years, more than $120 trillion in wealth will be passed down to inheritors, according to Cerulli Associates.

Only 27% of these future beneficiaries — primarily widows and children — plan to keep their benefactor’s wealth advisor, per Cerulli’s survey of investors with at least $250,000 in financial assets. The share drops to 20% for those who have already inherited their riches, according to the report released in September.

However, most heirs aren’t firing their benefactors’ wealth advisors in favor of self-directed investing and digital products. When asked why they chose another route, half of those surveyed said they already had their own advisor. The second-most popular reason, at 28%, was not having a relationship with their benefactors’ advisor. Only 14% said they didn’t want to work with a financial advisor at all, and 10% said the advisor didn’t meet their specific investment needs. Respondents to the survey could pick multiple reasons.

“Keep in mind, if the parents die in their 70s or 80s, the inheritor is between 40 and 60,” said John McKenna, research analyst at Cerulli. “In most of these cases, they have matured into wealth management clients. They have relationships, and they’re just going to be adding incrementally to their existing relationships rather than starting a new one with a legacy advisor.”

For their part, benefactors who are planning to pass their wealth down are largely ambivalent about whether their heirs use the same advisors despite saying they are largely satisfied with their service, Cerulli found. While just over a quarter of those surveyed said they wished their inheritors would keep their advisor, more than half said they were unsure or that it was up to their beneficiaries. Seven percent said they did not want their heirs to use their advisor, with the most popular reason being that the parties didn’t already have a relationship.

The crux of the problem, according to Scott Smith, senior director of advice relationships at Cerulli, is that clients are often reluctant to discuss their estate plans with their families. Even among investors with more than $5 million in financial assets, 20% said they intended for heirs to learn about their wealth after their death. The actual number of procrastinators is likely higher, as 34% of high-net-worth heirs said they were told these details after their benefactor died.

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“Benefactors believe that they will talk to their next generation about this stuff before they die,” said Smith. “But when we ask the next generation, these conversations didn’t happen.”

As a result, advisors may have few opportunities to talk to their client’s children and explain what they can offer, Smith said. It’s up to the advisor to encourage clients to stop putting off uncomfortable discussions, he said.

“Reinforce it with the primary contact that it’s important for the survivor to get involved early on so they have their feet securely on the ground and they aren’t panicking as soon as it happens,” he said. “It’s not just that we’re trying to retain the assets. We’re trying to make it easier for your survivor when you pass.”

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New Study Finds That Book Bans Lead to Increased Readership

admin — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 05:33:10 +0000

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

New Study Explores the Impact of Book Bans on Library Circulation

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon and George Mason University have published a new study about the impact of book bans on the consumption of banned books, and the results might surprise you. Using book circulation data from a “large library content and services supplies to major public and academic libraries in the United States” about the top 25 most-banned titles, found that:

Book bans increase the circulation of banned books by 12% compared to a control group. That is, book bans lead to a Streisand effect rather than having a chilling effect on readership.
The effect spills over to states without bans and is only slighlty lower (11.2% increase).
The increase in readership centers on books related to race, gender, and LGTBQ+ issues.
Book bans expose new readers to inclusive content; on average, children read banned books 19% more than the control titles after a book banning event.
Circulation of banned books increases in red states that have book bans and in blue states regardless of book ban status.

(This feels like a good time to remind you that, regardless of circulation and readership numbers, book bans are not good for authors. If you’re working on a “well, actually” with a positive spin about book bans, just stop.)

The findings above might lead you to wonder: if book bans are driving increased engagement with the very content activists claim to be trying to protect children from, why do they continue to pursue book bans? Follow the money. The study also looked at political messaging and donations and found that Republican politicians in red states saw an estimated 30% increase in donations under $500 after book ban events.

One more time for the folks in the back: it’s not about the books. As Book Riot’s Kelly Jensen reminds us, “books are an easy, on-the-ground, tangible target” that far-right groups have used as a thin end of the wedge in their pursuit of suppressing representations of and information about race and LGBTQ+ issues. Does it matter to conservative politicians that kids are actually reading more banned books? Not if their coffers are full and their voters are turning out.

It’s Been Five Years Since American Dirt, and We’re Still Salty

Five years ago, Jeanine Cummins’s American Dirt went from being the biggest book of the season to being the biggest controversy in publishing. Like, so big that she had to do a whole Oprah sit-down about it. Here’s Vanessa with a great piece on what happened with American Dirt and why it still stings.

Today In Books

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‘Super Bowl flu’ could cost businesses over $3B: study finds

admin — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 13:42:33 +0000

The “Super Bowl flu” could cost US businesses several billion dollars and waste nearly 108 million working hours collectively, according to a new study.

An estimated 54 million employed, alcohol-drinking Americans are expected to tune in Sunday to watch the Kansas City Chiefs go for a three-peat against the Philadelphia Eagles — with nearly 23 million expected to call out of the work the next day.

And if they do show up, they’re probably not working very hard. Whether viewers are toasting in celebration or drowning their sorrows, hungover workers are about 25% less productive and fumble about two hours of the workday, research shows.

People are 25% less productive at work when they are hungover, research shows. diy13 – stock.adobe.com

The average US employee earns $222 per day so if they waste a quarter of that on company time on what has become known as “Super Sick Monday,” it will cost their employers about $55 per person, totaling a whopping $3 billion, online marketing site NetVoucherCodes found.

“It’s very easy to take things too far and find yourself hungover the next day which can severely reduce your productivity depending on the amount you’ve had to drink and how you handle your alcohol,” said Rebecca Bebbington, finance expert for the marketing service.

“A hangover can impair your performance, making it harder to concentrate, solve problems, or make sound decisions,” she added.

Kansas City Chiefs fans celebrated their team’s win over the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII last year. Getty Images

Meanwhile, millions don’t plan to touch down at their place of work on Feb. 10, with plans to call out altogether or use sick days after the Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts showdown, potentially costing businesses even more.

A record-breaking 22.6 million football fans anticipate missing work following Super Bowl LIX, up from 16.1 million last year and 18.8 million in 2023, according to a UKG-Harris poll.

An additional 12.9 million US employees will be saying their Hail Mary’s as they head into work late the morning after the big game.

Tens of millions of employees are planning to use sick days or show up to work late the day after the Super Bowl. TheVisualsYouNeed – stock.adobe.com

And for many it’s not even a question — 36% admit they will be less productive than usual if they do go in, up from 30% last year.

That would all be solved if the Monday after the Super Bowl was a national holiday, which 43% of workers want to see happen, up from 37% in 2024.

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Innovative Study by UPenn and NYPL Finds That Public Libraries Positively Impact Community Health and Well-Being

admin — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 03:45:08 +0000

And, while the surveys collected and analyzed in the study were specific to the New York Public Library, researchers believe they can be extended to other libraries—be they in rural, urban, or suburban areas—across the country.

Daphna Blatt, the NYPL’s Senior Director of Strategy & Public Impact and one of the people involved in the study, underscored the significance of confirming through scientific method what many library lovers have known for awhile, saying, “Libraries & Well-Being is an innovative study in how it applies positive psychology frameworks to the library world, to show for the first time that library usage positively contributes to externally validated measures of well-being. Our research found that patrons experience refuge, joy, connection, purpose, and expansion through their library use.”

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