Research — including the compelling analysis in “Missing Billionaires” by Victor Haghani and James White — points to a consistent pattern: Roughly 70% of family wealth is lost by the second generation and 90% by the third. The reasons are rarely bad investments.9 More often, the culprit is inadequate planning, poor risk sizing, and the behavioral tendencies that humans carry into financial decisions — overconfidence, recency bias, and an orientation toward the present rather than multidecade horizons. We simply aren’t naturally wired for generational wealth preservation. That’s not a character flaw; it’s a human one. A comprehensive financial plan — one that brings the next generation into the conversation early, coordinates estate planning across the family, and builds financial literacy alongside financial assets — is one of the most reliable ways to help counter it. That’s exactly the kind of planning Mercer Advisors is built to support.