The great wealth transfer is underway, and women are poised to inherit and control trillions of dollars in assets. Yet many face unique financial planning challenges — from caregiving-related career interruptions to long-standing exclusion from financial decision-making — meaning advisors will need a more specialized, tailored approach to win their business.
Women are expected to control a significant share of that wealth. An estimated $124 trillion will be passed down by 2048, according to a recent estimate by Cerulli Associates. Of that, $54 trillion is expected to transfer to surviving spouses, 95% of whom are women, according to
But women inheritors — and the advice industry — may be underequipped.
Seventy percent of U.S. women report
As women take control of more inherited wealth, here's what advisors need to know about how to better serve them.
Making decisions around other people
Women need to find an entry point into inheriting wealth and making money decisions, said Cameron Rogers, partner at Angeles Wealth Management in New York. She said women often approach financial decisions differently from men, tending to be more thorough and disciplined.
"Women have a propensity to solve problems, whether it's your family or philanthropically," Rogers said. "They need to strategize around what it looks like. What do I start out with? How do I prioritize things? How do I segment my money between my family and my community and my philanthropic endeavors?"
Women's decision-making processes can manifest as a lack of confidence. For example, women make fewer trades. A 2021 Fidelity survey found that only 33% of women felt confident handling their own investments.
That combination of thorough decision-making and reluctance to make decisions under pressure can contribute to "analysis paralysis" around wealth, Rogers said.
"For women, wealth is related to security and to freedom. That's not just financial, it's cultural," she said. "There's also something to be said about that flywheel when you feel good about your wealth. When women feel good about their wealth and what it's doing and the interconnectedness, they're more likely to be entrepreneurial and invest."
Women's decision-making is often shaped by a community mindset, said Jillian Berry, senior director of StrongHer Money at RFG Advisory in Birmingham, Alabama. They often incorporate other people into their decisions, as well as major life events like career breaks, caregiving or divorce.
When working with women inheritors, planners aren't advising just one client, but often helping them weigh decisions that affect an entire support system, Berry said.
Grief and guilt may be part of the process
Advisors should also consider the emotional context in which women are coming into money, including divorce or widowhood, Berry said.
"There's so many parts of each one of those transitions. They might have a new work-life balance because we might be a single mother. They might be having to take new financial things on because now we are the primary breadwinner," Berry said.
One factor that also gets overlooked when women inherit wealth is guilt, said Laura Combs, executive managing partner at Mercer Advisors in Boulder, Colorado. Sometimes, they feel as if they didn't deserve the money, or are mourning a past chapter of their life.
Planners often skip over helping women walk through the grief process while managing money. But it's a crucial aspect to address, Combs added.
A plan of her own: Building what she wants
Many women will inherit money from a spouse. On average, women live five years longer than men. But being left out of money conversations and not serving as the primary financial decision-maker in a partnership can open up several planning gaps, Combs said. Many women don't have a financial plan built around their own life, but rather their husband's.
"Whether they inherited an estate plan or a structure that was meant for two people, it wasn't meant for what her goals may be going forward," Combs said. "Investors need to really think about what they should change, or misalignment in the estate plan that was in place versus the situation today."
That can leave widows with financial plans that no longer match their own priorities, opening the door for advisors to revisit estate planning goals.
Another planning misalignment for women after a spouse passes is the so-called widow's tax. Women may face higher taxes after inheriting wealth because required minimum distributions (RMDs) from retirement accounts add to their taxable income, often pushing the widow into a higher bracket.
Each woman has unique financial needs, Combs said. To help women build confidence and support their decisions around inherited wealth, advisors should help build a plan that the client feels ownership of.
"Even simple things like updating beneficiaries, like reviewing estate documents and stress testing the portfolio with her in the conversation," Combs said. "Setting — maybe for the first time ever — goals that are actually and entirely her own."
