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.
We exist so you don’t have to worry about money. For more than 40 years, we’ve taken the sophisticated, time-tested approach that many ultra-high net worth individuals use to help manage their financial lives and made it accessible to more families.
