Gen X could get trillions in inheritance over 10 years

investmentnews.com:

Trillions of dollars stand to be passed via inheritance from the Silent Generation to Gen Xers over the next 10 years, and that will mean a lot of hirings and firings of financial advisors.

Currently, people aged 65 to 74 have wealth totaling $22.4 trillion, which is the highest amount among any age group, according to a report today from consumer research firm Hearts & Wallets. In 10 years, an estimated 23 million households will be 75 or older, and another 5.6 million will be at least 85.

“This [wealth transfer] is not about Boomers and Millennials,” said Laura Varas, CEO of Hearts & Wallets. Assuming most people die by 80 or 85, and that the adult children of the Silent Generation today are around age 50, most of the inherited assets will go to Gen Xers, Varas said.

Among the nearly 16 million people who today are 75 or older, there are about $15.5 trillion in assets they control, she said.

With all of the inheritances that will be happening, people will need help managing assets, even if what they receive is not necessarily a windfall, according to the firm. Receiving an inheritance and experiencing the death of a family member tends to get people focused on their own financial planning, Varas said.

People who inherit $500,000 are often experienced with financial services, with 35 percent having taxable brokerages and generally having higher levels of equity in real estate than average. Nearly 60 percent also consider themselves to be at least somewhat familiar with investing. Those people may have been skeptical of some financial services providers in the past, and, if they didn’t like the arrangement, have often already fired them, Varas said.

“The people who have experienced [an inheritance] are not afraid of