Episode summary
Rethinking Financial Planning for Childfree Clients with Dr. Jay Zigmont
Summary
Dr. Jay Zigmont argues that financial planning still assumes a life path built around marriage, children, and next-generation wealth transfer, which leaves childfree and permanently childless clients underserved. He says he entered this niche after noticing that CFP training and planning software barely acknowledge living without kids, even though he estimates 25% of U.S. adults are childfree or permanently childless.
A major theme is estate planning. Zigmont says many childfree clients delay wills because they do not have an obvious decision-maker, and he thinks advisers should ask different questions: what clients want to be known for, who should handle medical and financial decisions, and what happens if a spouse is not available. He also emphasizes pet planning, saying pets are common in this group and should be protected through formal pet trusts, not just informal promises.
He also argues that standard Monte Carlo planning and AUM incentives can conflict with childfree goals, especially for clients who want to spend down assets and “die with zero.” Zigmont says advisers should adapt their process, consider charitable strategies while clients are alive, and use flatter-fee or niche-specific service models to better fit this audience.
Key takeaways
- Jay Zigmont says 25% of U.S. adults are childfree or permanently childless, and most planning systems still assume children and a next generation.
- He says fewer than 20% of childfree people he studied have a will, largely because they do not know who should be named for key decision-making roles.
- Zigmont argues pet trusts matter because about 76% of childfree people have pets, and informal promises are not enough to protect them.
- He says many childfree clients prefer a “die with zero” approach, so advisers should rethink Monte Carlo targets, retirement timing, and charitable gifting assumptions.
- Zigmont believes advisers can serve this market by adding a few better questions and offering a professional backup for estate and medical roles.
Notable quotes
“if you look across the US, 25% of the US are child-free or permanently childless”
“what I found is it changes just about every component of your life. Financial, tax, estate plan, all of it”
“the entire estate planning system assumes you have a next ofkin to do this”
“the vast majority of them, probably 95% or more that I've spoken to don't prioritize passing money to the next generation”
“I think if nothing else, you need to double down on kind of that life planning side and getting deep with your clients”
How the episode opens
Hi, I'm Suzanne Syracuse. Welcome to season 4 of my podcast, Focused on the Future: Keys to Building a Profitable, Sustainable, and Impactful Business. And I'm excited to be partnering with wealthmanagement.com on this.
This series will focus on what firms need to embrace to ensure their growth and success for the future. And you'll hear from industry leaders and advisers on what is working for them. I have a great line of guests in store, and today I'm speaking to Dr.
Jay Ziggmmont. Jay is the founder and CEO of Child-Free Wealth, a financial advisory firm which does comprehensive life and financial planning for people who are childfree or permanently childless. He is also the CEO and founder of Child-Free Trust which serve serves as medical POA, financial POA, executive and trustee for people who don't have kids, which is me by the way.
and effectively it becomes their next of kin. So, welcome Jay. I'm so excited to talk with you.
It's wonderful to see you. This is such an important conversation that I really don't feel is in the um in the news as much as it should be. So, thank you very much for being here and for being my guest today.
Thanks for having me and I really appreciate you being willing to lean into it because that's one of the challenges is getting a good platform to talk about this. — Okay. Well, wonderful. We'll we'll we'll be promoting uh we'll be promoting this out as much as we can as well because again when you guys hear the statistics it's it's pretty incredible what an opportunity it is to serve child-free individuals and couples. So before we get into all that I always like to start off with the same question on this podcast which is you know how did you end up working within the financial planning industry?
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- childfree financial planning
- estate planning
- charitable giving
- retirement strategies
- pet trusts
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Childfree Wealth
- Childfree Trust
Watch the episode
Watch “Rethinking Financial Planning for Childfree Clients with Dr. Jay Zigmont” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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