Bernstein's Jennifer Goode says childless clients are underserved by estate-planning defaults

Jennifer Goode, senior national director in Bernstein Private Wealth Management's Wealth Strategies Group, told InvestmentNews that clients without children are among the most underserved, and advisors who learn to serve them have a practice opportunity.

InvestmentNews, citing Federal Reserve research, reports that childless adults carry a median net worth significantly above the general population while being far less likely to have a will or any formal legal planning documents.

The standard estate-planning model is built around guardian appointments and generational wealth transfer, and does not translate cleanly to a household with no children, Goode argues. "Too often, children are seen as a primary reason to put an estate plan in place," she told InvestmentNews, adding that legacy conversations get more nuanced when a client is looking past that default, which can create hesitancy to engage.

When no formal documents exist, state law typically grants decision-making authority to a parent, a sibling or a more distant relative, regardless of whether that person is the best representative of the client's wishes. Goode calls nonparents uniquely vulnerable to that default: "How often might a close friend or advisor be a better fit for a nonparent?"

Goode coaches Bernstein advisors to first identify clients whose planning doesn't fit the parent-to-child framework, though not only nonparents—clients who want a highly personalized plan may benefit from the same conversation. The sequence leads with people and values rather than legal structures: who and what the client cares about, then how the plan reflects it.

For an RIA, the operational lesson is that document pipelines tend to be triggered by conventional family events. A firm that waits for a birth to start the estate-planning conversation will never start it for this household; an intake question that routes on planning complexity rather than family status could help.

Goode's closing suggestion was the least technical: ask clients about the people who shape their lives, whether or not those people are children.