The 70% widow statistic cannot be checked

A figure has circulated in the advice business for decades: 70% of widows leave the advisor the couple shared. In May 2026, Financial Planning reported that researchers Ken Kehrer of Kehrer Group and Luke Allchin of RFI Global had gone looking for the study behind it. What they found was fragmentary: traces of a single report, now out of print, with little on how its data was gathered.

They then put the question to RFI’s MacroMonitor database. Among recent widows whose households hold at least $150,000 in financial assets and are retired or still saving for retirement, nearly 14% had cut ties with an advisor or changed advisors. For all investing households the figure was nearly 5%. That is a much smaller risk than 70%, and a firm can look for it in its own book.

Where the 70% came from

The article’s account of the search is brief. Kehrer and Allchin wanted to examine the original study, which the article describes as small-sample, and those traces are all that turned up. The article also reports a theory about how the number grew: the old study’s responses about dropping a professional skewed toward life insurance agents, most likely after the policy had paid out. If that is right, the figure was never about the advisor who manages the household’s money.

That is a theory about a report nobody can now inspect, and the article presents it as one. What the search establishes is that a figure quoted for decades as a finding rests on a study no reader can examine.

What was measured

The replacement comes from the same MacroMonitor database. The article reports that it covers 7.3 million U.S. widows, who make up 5% of households, that 1.6 million of them lost a spouse within the past two years, and that the researchers looked at behavior going back to 1978. The 14% figure is for recent widows whose households hold at least $150,000 in financial assets and are retired or still saving or investing toward retirement. The comparison figure, nearly 5%, is for all investing households, and the article puts the difference at almost three times.

The article calls this the larger sample without giving its size. The figure counts a widow who moved to another advisor together with one who stopped using an advisor altogether. The two groups are also not matched: the 14% is limited to recent widows above an asset floor, and the article states no such limits for the 5%.

Cerulli Associates reached a similar place from another direction. In research published in September 2024, it reported that 85% of advised investors stayed with their advisor after a spouse died: 91% of the men and 81% of the women. Cerulli called the research initial, and its summary does not state the size of the sample. It said people change advisors for varied reasons that mostly come down to how strong the relationship was, and it urged advisors to know both spouses, and the couple’s grown children, long before either spouse dies.

Both readings are far below 70%, and both show a gap: recent widows against all investing households in the RFI data, and ten points between the women and the men in Cerulli’s.

Which households the 14% points at

The data does not say why those widows left. The usual explanation is that advisors talk to the husband and overlook the wife. Kehrer told Financial Planning that “our data cannot yet verify” it. Cerulli’s summary points at the relationship without saying which spouse the advisor knew.

Neither source proves that the spouse who never met the advisor is the one who leaves. It is still a variable a firm can check in its own records: who attended the last three reviews, whose email receives the reports, and whether the second spouse has ever spoken with anyone at the firm. A household where every answer is the same person is one the firm knows through one spouse only.

Estate planning involves each spouse in their own right. On Bancroft, a will and a power of attorney are each one person’s document, so when both spouses have documents, each spouse’s set comes from that spouse’s own questionnaire and carries that spouse’s signature. The advisor who leads the signing meets each of them.

Bringing the second spouse in

The next review is where to start. The invitation goes to both spouses by name, at their own email addresses, with the agenda attached, and the summary afterward goes to both as well. If the second spouse cannot attend, a short call to introduce the firm and confirm contact details means that spouse has spoken with someone at the firm and knows whom to call.

A survivor who has met the advisor, has been receiving the firm’s reports, and knows what the firm does for the household is deciding about a relationship that already exists. That addresses the explanation commonly given for the departures and costs one more name on an invitation, although nothing in the data shows that it keeps the survivor as a client.

Offering estate planning gives the invitation a reason beyond courtesy. Each spouse’s documents come from a questionnaire the household completes, each spouse signs their own, and the annual review invites both to say whether anything has changed. The annual review guide sets out what that review covers.

The same reasoning extends to the people a couple names to act after them, who may be as unknown to the firm as the second spouse was. The successor trustee who was never asked covers that conversation, and a funding meeting agenda for the household and its successors covers the meeting where the firm can meet them.

How Bancroft handles it

On the platform, a will, a power of attorney, and a HIPAA authorization are each one person’s document, generated from its own questionnaire, so a married household’s plan can hold a set for each spouse. The trust questionnaire asks whether the trust is individual or joint. In a joint trust the couple are co-grantors and both sign, and in the standard structure both serve as the initial co-trustees.

When both spouses have their own documents, the plan summary the advisor generates for the household shows two columns, one for each spouse, with that spouse’s will, powers of attorney and HIPAA authorization, the status of each, and the people named in the completed ones.

To see the plan summary for a two-spouse household, book a demo.