Succession surveys often stop at wills and trusts. This one lands on capability. Sun Life Asia’s Passing the Torch research, covering more than 3,000 respondents across Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam, finds that 70 per cent worry their wealth will not be preserved beyond the next generation. Only 20 per cent feel fully prepared to pass on a legacy today.
Among those already worried about survival of wealth, 52 per cent cite whether beneficiaries are ready to manage what they inherit as the primary concern. That ranks above market volatility and above family conflict over assets. Nearly three-quarters of families planning a financial legacy also intend to pass on values, knowledge or life lessons. Skills and education, family values and life lessons lead the non-financial list.
Planning is becoming more formal. Fully documented and communicated legacy plans more than doubled from 10 per cent in 2025 to 22 per cent in 2026. Those with no plan at all fell from 31 per cent to 15 per cent. Confidence has not kept pace. Worry that wealth will not survive the next generation has risen even as paperwork improved. The richest households in the sample worry less about family conflict and more about investment decisions, tax and legal complexity, and trust in advisers.
For private banks, insurers and multi-family offices the investment implication is direct. Product shelves that only optimise portfolio construction miss the binding constraint clients are naming: next-generation competence. That points to education programmes, co-investment pathways for heirs, governance structures, and advisory relationships that survive the principal. It also explains demand for insurance and trust solutions that buy time while capability is built.
The proprietary frame is a shift from document readiness to operator readiness. Asia’s wealth transfer is large enough that every platform talks about succession. Few can show that heirs can underwrite, allocate and govern. Platforms that treat legacy as an investment-committee problem for the next generation, not only a legal filing, will match what the survey says clients fear most.