Losing a parent is hard enough. Having to turn around and have a practical, money-focused conversation with the surviving parent about what comes next can feel impossible. But this is one of the most common situations we see in financial planning, and it is one of the most important conversations a family can have.
At our recent Personal Wealth Conference in Asheville, one attendee raised this exact question. Her father had passed away a year earlier, leaving everything to her mother. Mom is 74, lives in Florida, and now has about $18 million and no plan in place. She wanted to know what her mother should be thinking about, and how she could bring it up without seeming crass.
I want to walk through the framework I shared with her, because the approach I’ve used with clients for years takes a lot of the awkwardness out of this conversation.
The Bigger Risk Is Not What You Think
At $18 million and age 74, with a Florida residence, there is no immediate federal estate tax emergency. Florida has no state estate tax, and the current federal exemption is well above that figure for a single person. What could push this family into an estate tax problem is time. If mom lives another 20 years and does not spend a dollar of that portfolio, compounding gets us to a very different place than we are today.
The counterintuitive truth is that the bigger risk for most clients in this situation is not overspending. It is underspending. The people who have accumulated $18 million usually got there because they are accumulators by nature. Accumulators are not very good at spending, even when they have every reason to.
Most Americans End Up With More Than They Started
There is a large body of research showing that most Americans reach the end of their financial plan with more money than they began with in retirement. Read that again. They end retirement with more. That is not what anyone sat down with their advisor and planned for. That is the default outcome when spending does not keep up with portfolio growth.
This is why the first conversation I would have with a 74-year-old parent sitting on $18 million is not “what are you leaving us.” It is “what do you want to do with this money while you are here to enjoy it.” Those are very different conversations, and they land very differently.
Start With What They Want, Not What You Need
When an adult child opens with “mom, what is the plan for all of this money,” the parent hears a request. Sometimes a demand. That puts everyone on the defensive. A better opening is to ask about the trip she has been putting off, the house she might want to buy for grandkids, the charitable interests she has never had time to pursue.
The point is not to avoid the hard topics. It is to start the conversation on her terms, with her goals in the center of the frame. Once you are actually talking about money and values together, the estate questions come up much more naturally.
The Blame the Advisor Move
Here is a practical tip that works. If a parent is resistant to having the conversation at all, the easiest on-ramp is to blame us. Literally. You can say “my financial advisor asked me to have this conversation with you. I did not want to bring it up, but she said it was something we needed to talk through.” That reframes the conversation as an obligation you are reluctantly fulfilling rather than a request you are making.
Nine times out of ten, that breaks the ice. The parent feels less like they are being pressured and more like they are helping you check something off a list.
The Practical Questions Matter More Than the Money
There is a whole layer of this conversation that has nothing to do with dollars. Is there an estate plan in place? Are there trusts, and do you know who the trustees are? Who is her attorney, and who is her CPA? How are the properties titled? If she has multiple accounts, which one pays the bills? If something happens tomorrow, who does the family call first?
You do not need to know the numbers. You do not need to see her balance sheet. You just need to know there is a plan, and you need to know how to execute it if she cannot. That alone is a worthwhile outcome of the conversation.
The Window Is Not Open Forever
Every year you put this off, two things happen. The dollars get bigger, which raises the eventual estate and administrative stakes. And cognitive capacity, for some parents, starts to slip. The window in which a parent can make these decisions thoughtfully and on their own terms is not open indefinitely.
The conversation does not have to be perfect. It just has to start. Begin with what she wants, not what you need. Use us as cover when the topic gets heavy. And focus as much on the practical logistics as on the money itself. That is usually enough to turn a dreaded conversation into a productive one.
This post is adapted from a recent episode of the Scholar Wealth Podcast. For more on having the estate conversation with aging parents, listen to the full podcast episode here.