Key Takeaways

• The United States added 736,000 millionaires during 2025, lifting the high-net-worth population 9.2% to 8.7 million, per Capgemini’s World Wealth Report 2026.
• Only 17% of high-net-worth investors call their advisory experience personalized and well-coordinated, and 88% work with more than one firm. (Capgemini, 2026)
• Advisors can earn a larger share of these relationships by expanding their service model, coordinating outside specialists, and building family connections years before wealth changes hands.

A high-net-worth (HNW) client sells the company she spent 30 years building, and the wire clears on a Friday. By Monday, she has three questions that a portfolio review will not answer. What does the sale do to her tax bill? How much should move into a trust for her daughter? Is the family foundation she keeps mentioning realistic?

She will call one advisor first. It will be the one she believes can help address all three, not just the one managing the portfolio.

Finding high-net-worth prospects is the easy part. The United States added 736,000 millionaires in 2025, reaching 8.7 million, per Capgemini’s World Wealth Report 2026. Cerulli projects the advisor-managed HNW market will pass $30 trillion by 2028.

Becoming the advisor those clients call first is harder. Capgemini surveyed 6,510 high-net-worth investors. Only 17% describe their advisory experience as personalized and well-coordinated, and 88% work with more than one firm, usually to access alternatives their advisor does not offer.

Most high-net-worth clients already have an advisor they trust with part of the picture, but few have one they trust with all of it.

Look at your own book. How many households bring you every financial question? How many keep a second firm for what you do not cover?

What high-net-worth clients expect from and advisor

Practices have responded by expanding the service model. Cerulli reports that high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth practices offered an average of 12 client services in 2024, up from 10 in 2017. Charitable planning, trust administration, and private banking are some of the latest additions.

As David McNatt, our Chief Wealth Solutions and Strategy Officer, explains, “For high-net-worth clients, the breadth of services an advisor offers is only part of the equation. The real differentiator is how well an advisor integrates investments, taxes, liquidity, legacy and family priorities around the decisions that matter most. When those priorities are considered together, advisors can play a more relevant role in the client’s financial life.”

Each new addition traces back to a client problem. An investor holding concentrated stock or an operating business cannot separate the investment decision from the tax bill. That is how tax-efficient investing and estate planning joined the list. Charitable planning followed the same logic. The founder above needs her annual giving structured before December, not February.

High-net-worth clients do not separate their questions the way firms separate departments. A widow inheriting a portfolio that she never managed needs an income plan and an estate attorney introduction in one conversation, not two meetings six weeks apart. A client with 60% of his net worth in one stock will not discuss diversifying until he hears the tax math.

You do not have to deliver every service yourself, and trying to do so usually dilutes what you already do well. The role worth claiming is narrower: name the priority, bring in the right specialists, and keep everyone working from the same plan.

The high-net-worth client checklist

Each capability below maps to the moments when high-net-worth clients look somewhere else. Be honest about which ones your practice delivers today.

1. Custom investment portfolios. Standard allocation models rarely fit a client with concentrated stock, a low-cost basis, or values they want reflected in their portfolio. Direct Indexing, tax-loss harvesting through Tax Management Services, and Private Markets access give you room to work around those constraints. Tax-related results vary by holdings, market conditions, timing, and each client’s tax situation, so set that expectation early.
2. Holistic wealth management. Recall that 88% of high-net-worth investors work with more than one firm. That is reflective of service gaps, not a loyalty problem. Clients add a second firm when their advisor cannot provide something they want, and the assets go where the service is available. That movement runs through three phases: searching, consolidating, and transferring. Expanding into retirement income, philanthropy, insurance, and business planning closes that gap, starting with financial planning. Coordinate with qualified legal and tax professionals rather than presenting planning ideas as legal or tax advice.
3. Financial advisor technology. Capgemini found operational tasks consume 41% of advisor time, and 76% of advisors want systems that automate routine work. Expanding the service model takes time you do not have today, and that 41% is the most realistic place to find it. Many advisors already route meeting notes and client communication drafts through AI tools to save time.
4. Withdrawal and risk strategies. Even clients with substantial wealth still worry about outliving it, and greater wealth brings greater complexity. A strong plan coordinateswithdrawals across taxable, tax-deferred, and tax-free accounts. It also reassesses insurance and estate planning needs and ties those decisions to the client’s investment strategy. Review personal liability and cybersecurity coverage in the same pass, since older policies may no longer match the client’s current exposure.
5. Succession and the next generation. Cerulli projects that $124 trillion will change hands through 2048. Roughly $40 trillion of that reaches widowed spouses in Baby Boomer households before children. An advisor who knows only the primary client can lose the relationship twice: once when the spouse inherits, and again when the children do. Building those relationships early is retention work. Among high-net-worth firms Cerulli surveyed in 2024, 89% named regular family meetings a key practice in mitigating these risks.

Those five capabilities determine whether a client considers you for more of their business. Earning it takes something else.

How to attract and retain high-net-worth clients

Answer quickly. A business sale, a diagnosis, or an offer on a second home arrives without notice, and the advisor who responds first shapes the decision.

Ask what the money is for. Clients at this level are deciding what their wealth should do for their family and community. That conversation goes better with someone who has had that talk before.

Be specific about fees. A client who cannot explain your fee to a skeptical adult child will eventually be asked to.

Capgemini found that when firms get the client experience right, 53% of high-net-worth investors recommend the firm and 47% consolidate assets with it. Instead of adding a second firm like that 88% of HNW investors, the client moves outside accounts to you.

None of this scales by working longer hours. It scales by moving specialist work, reporting, and operational tasks off your calendar.

As a wealth management platform, AssetMark is built to help advisors meet the changing needs of their clients and businesses. For high-net-worth clients, that can include Tax Management Services, Direct Indexing, Private Markets resources, and support designed to help advisors strengthen client relationships.

Are you ready to build a more scalable high-net-worth client experience? Connect with AssetMark to discuss how the platform can support your private wealth strategy.