We’re halfway through the year. For most families, a lot may have already changed since January: graduations, business fluctuations, tax law updates, health issues. The goals you set at the beginning of the year may not reflect the reality you’re living in now.
A midyear wealth checkup can give families a structured way to reflect on whether the plan that’s been guiding your decision-making is comprehensive, up-to-date, and still reflective of the impact you want your wealth to have.
Estate Planning: The Cost of Waiting
A national survey of 5,000 U.S. adults conducted for the Trust & Will 2026 Estate Planning Report found that 56% of U.S. adults have no estate planning documents at all: no will, trust, medical power of attorney, financial power of attorney, or HIPAA authorization, a trend that has held roughly flat for two years running. What may be more telling is the direction of one specific document: will ownership actually declined in the same period, falling from 31% to 26%.
Even families who do have proper estate planning documents in place often don’t revisit them for years, even decades. A plan built five or ten years ago may have been drafted before a second child, a divorce, or a new business. While technically valid, it can still be out of date.
Tax Code Updates That May Impact Your Legacy
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the federal lifetime exemption for estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax purposes rose to $15 million per individual, effective January 1, 2026, with a combined exemption of $30 million for married couples. The new legislation represents an increase of just over $1 million per person compared to 2025, and the higher threshold is now permanent rather than set to expire.
For some families, OBBBA can significantly impact the planning conversation. Many advisors are seeing less urgency around federal estate tax exposure and more focus on control, asset protection, liquidity, and family governance, particularly where wealth is concentrated in a business or other illiquid assets. A plan built around the old, lower exemption may benefit from a second look now that the landscape has changed.
The Right Time for the Wealth Transfer Conversation
Taxes and up-to-date documents are part of your plan, but what your family talks about (or doesn’t talk about) is another. Fidelity Investments’ 2025 Family & Finance Study, which surveyed parents 55 and older alongside their adult children, found that more than half of parents had not shared their net worth with their children, and 68% had not discussed what those children might inherit or when. At the same time, 95% of adult children believed they could handle inherited assets responsibly, while roughly one in four parents doubted that.
The disconnect, confidence on one side and silence on the other, can be worth addressing directly rather than assuming it will resolve on its own. A midyear checkup can be a natural point to ask whether the next generation understands not just what they may inherit, but why certain decisions were made.
A Midyear Checklist
A midyear checkup doesn’t need to be exhaustive or require a major time commitment. Families may find it useful to start with a short list:
- Have there been life changes since January (a birth, a marriage, a health event, a business change) that the plan should reflect?
- Are beneficiary designations and trust documents still aligned with the family’s current wishes?
- Does the current estate plan still make sense under the new federal exemption levels, or was it built around the old thresholds?
- Has the next generation been told what they may inherit and why the plan is structured the way it is?
- Is the portfolio still positioned in a way that reflects the family’s stated goals and risk tolerance?
Turn Review into a Regular Habit
A wealth plan built for one set of circumstances a few years ago may need adjusting as tax laws, family structures, or business realities shift. Families who build in a regular check-in, at midyear, at year-end, or after a major life event, may find it easier to keep a plan aligned with their goals than families who only revisit a plan when something forces the issue.
Halfway through the year is as good a time as any to ask: is our plan built to last, and is now the moment to check?
If you’d like to talk through what a midyear checkup could look like for your family’s legacy and long-term goals, we would welcome that conversation.
