Families at odds over estates, Fidelity study finds

Parents believe they have had the 'talk,' children not so much

When it comes to discussing their estates, it turns out that parents and their adult children are rarely on the same page, according to a recent study by Fidelity Investments.

Although 90% of families say it’s important to have frank conversations about estate plans and wills, 70% of parents surveyed believe they have had detailed conversations with their children on the subject, while more than half of their children claim they didn’t.

The Family & Finance Study also found that 70% of families have major misconceptions about the value of the parents’ estates. On average, children underestimated that value by $278,000.

In addition, only 66% of the adult children in the study actually knew where to find their parents’ important documents, such as wills, power of attorney and healthcare proxies, while 80% of the parents believed their children knew where the documents were.

Two-thirds of families also disagreed about the appropriate time to initiate conversations about the parents’ finances.

(More: Many wealthy Americans haven’t planned for the transfer of their assets )

The study, which Fidelity conducts every two years, was based on a survey of 1,273 parents age 55 or older who had investible assets of at least $100,000. Also surveyed were their 221 adult children over age 25 who had money saved in an investment account.

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