The Allianz American Legacy Study: An Ongoing Series Of Articles

Which Topic Would You Rather Discuss With Your Family:
Estate Planning Or Legacy Planning?

During the next several decades, researchers expect roughly $25 trillion in wealth to be handed down by the present retiree generation.  About $7.2 trillion of that will go directly to the boomers.  This constitutes the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history.

 

 

 

 

 

The specific objectives of the study were to quantify the hopes, fears, priorities, and motivations related to the passing of values, assets, and wealth between the two generations – baby boomers and the generation of their parents.  A national survey asked boomers and elders to identify how they define leaving a legacy and how families are communicating about these sensitive issues today.

A very enlightening discovery early on in the research was the perception of particular words and phrases.  When interviews were conducted and participants were asked about whether they had done any ‘estate planning’ or if they were planning on leaving an ‘inheritance’, the answers were terse and very uninformative.  The topic was clearly one that was either not important to the participants, a topic that they did not want to discuss, or a topic that they felt did not pertain to them.

The researchers then had an idea.  They changed the question asking about ‘estate planning’ to one about ‘legacy planning’.  Had the participants done any ‘legacy planning’?  Did they plan on leaving a ‘legacy’ for future generations?  And now the responses were astonishingly effusive.  The respondents’ demeanors were much more relaxed and the discussions much more forthcoming. 

It seemed that ‘estate planning’ and ‘inheritance’ were tied to such topics as wills, trusts, money and death.  While important topics, they were topics people do not like to talk about.  But the word legacy had a different connotation.  ‘Legacy’ seemed to relate more to values, family, relationships and inheritances other than money.  This finding was enlightening and dictated the course of the rest of the study.

While no one can definitively predict the psychological, social, and economic impact of this unprecedented movement of wealth, this new study did reveal what matters most to both generations today and what they are planning to do.  One thing the study clearly, and surprisingly, discovered: With tens of trillions of dollars at stake…it’s not about the money.  Future articles will explain this phenomena in detail.

Future articles in this series will also discuss the themes that emerged from the study and the Four Pillars of Legacy that was developed to help families begin discussions about legacy planning.

I truly encourage your feedback on these articles.  I would love to write a future article about what some families are doing to facilitate the process of communicating legacies between the different generations.  This is going to be a fascinating journey.

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In this environment, The Allianz American Legacy Study was conceived and designed to be the most comprehensive examination of intergenerational wealth transfer dynamics ever undertaken.  It was commissioned to better understand the emotional and financial impact of wealth transfer of this magnitude on American families.

To design the study, Allianz partnered with Dr. Ken Dychtwald of Age Wage Research, a leading research firm in the understanding of human behavior in the context of our modern society, and Harris Interactive® was hired to conduct the surveys.