Spotting Your Next Trust Client: What 2025 Data Tells Us
Understanding who is most likely to benefit from trust planning is often the starting point for better client conversations. Reviewing 2025 data from WAY Trustees gives advisers a clearer picture of who is undertaking estate planning, why it is happening earlier, and where opportunities are being missed.
Key Points
- Trust planning is happening earlier and more proactively
- Women are increasingly leading estate planning discussions
- Beneficiaries are often excluded from conversations, creating future risk
- Flexibility remains the main driver behind trust selection
- Average trust sizes continue to grow, with broader beneficiary groups
Who is the “typical” WAY Trustees client in 2025?
Understanding who is most likely to benefit from a trust is often the first step in identifying the right conversations to have with clients. Reviewing our 2025 data provides a clearer picture of the clients advisers are introducing and the planning needs we most commonly address.
This year has been our strongest since 2014, with a 58% increase in new trusts written year on year. With that growth has come clearer insight into the profile of the people choosing to undertake estate planning using lifetime trusts.
Age and planning motivation
The average age of a Settlor in 2025 was 68, with ages ranging from 40 to 93. Historically, over our 20+ years, the typical Settlor in the early years would have been male and well into their 70s. Today we are clearly seeing earlier planning, more intergenerational discussions, and trusts being used proactively rather than reactively. Common triggers include retirement, bereavement, inheritance, business exit and grandchildren.
Women are increasingly leading the planning conversation
We worked with more women than men in 2025, often reflecting longer life expectancy and planning undertaken by a surviving spouse. These clients typically prioritise flexibility for themselves, control and clarity for beneficiaries.
Are beneficiaries being involved enough?
In a recent poll of financial advisers, the majority told us beneficiaries are not usually involved in the planning process. This may be a missed opportunity. Involving adult beneficiaries, where appropriate, can help prepare families for wealth transfer, reduce conflict, strengthen adviser relationships across generations and support retention of assets under management.
What puts clients off gifting — and how it can be overcome
We also asked advisers why clients are reluctant to make lifetime gifts into trust. The most common concerns were:
- loss of control
- loss of access to funds
- needing to fund later-life care
- fear of running out of money themselves
A flexible reversionary trust structure is designed specifically to address these barriers, allowing planning to proceed without clients feeling they are “giving away too much too soon”.
What do clients typically settle?
The average trust size for an Inheritor Gift Trust in 2025 was £258,733, although some individuals may establish more than one trust. From a Consumer Duty perspective, advisers are increasingly adopting multiple-trust frameworks for clients seeking to mitigate inheritance tax on amounts exceeding the nil-rate band (NRB). This has been through greater use of Loan Trusts and trusts funded from gifts made under the normal expenditure out of income rules. While children remain the most common beneficiaries, stepchildren, nieces, nephews, and friends are being included with increasing frequency.
If you recognise these client characteristics in your own book, we’d be delighted to support case discussions or client-facing meetings, and our MasterClass webinars provide an easy way to refresh knowledge and identify opportunities.
