wealthschema/archetypes/h-02-high-net-worth-3m-10m
H-02High Net WorthAccumulationvery-high tax complexity

High Net Worth ($3M–$10M)

HNW household, family office candidate, complex estate plan, GRATs, irrevocable trusts, private equity exposure.

The $3M–$10M tier is where estate planning stops being optional and family-office economics start to pencil out. H-02 models the household profile where GRATs, SLATs, and concentrated-position unwind strategies become the testing surface area.

Age Range
45–65
Net Worth
$5M–$30M
Cohort
High Net Worth

About this archetype

H-02 sits at a specific inflection point that's underrepresented in publicly available test data. Below $3M, estate complexity is mostly future-tense; above $10M, families typically have multi-family-office relationships and bespoke structures that don't generalize. The $3M–$10M band is where wealth-tech products encounter the messy middle: AMT meaningfully bites, the lifetime gift exemption is in play but not yet exhausted, PE and venture allocations appear on K-1s but rarely dominate the balance sheet, and one or two illiquid concentrations typically anchor the household's risk profile. The corpus shows median net worth of $9.18M with the upper quartile near $14M — well inside the band, with a wide enough income distribution ($300k–$1M) to exercise both AMT-active and AMT-quiet years.

Cash-flow shape is post-peak-earnings but still earnings-positive. Median combined income is $499,888 with the 75th percentile near $640k. 84% are homeowners (mortgages still active in 21 of 25 households — jumbo geographies), and the goal mix shifts from accumulation-first to wealth-transfer-first: education funding is past peak for many households (14 of 25 still carrying it as a goal vs 21+ at younger archetypes), and the headline goal pattern is increasingly about estate efficiency rather than raw retirement target attainment. CA, NY, and TX concentrate 12 of 25 households — the state-estate-tax and high-marginal-rate geography that drives the testing surface.

What makes H-02 distinct from neighbors is the *inflection-point* nature of the wealth tier. H-01 below has the same managed-portfolio operating model but hasn't yet crossed the threshold where GRAT and SLAT mechanics pencil. H-03 above has crossed into family-office territory where the structures are bespoke and don't generalize across households. P-01/P-06 may share net-worth tier in transition states but H-02 is the steady-state HNW household — concentrated positions partially unwound, estate plan executed, advisor relationships stable.

Defining characteristics

  • GRAT
    Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts are live at this tier — the $3M–$10M band is exactly where the §7520 hurdle-rate arbitrage on appreciating assets justifies the legal and trustee cost. Walton-style zeroed-out two-year GRATs are the default form.
  • Irrevocable trust
    ILITs (life-insurance), SLATs (spousal lifetime access), and IDGTs (intentionally-defective grantor) appear at H-02. Decanting and trust-protector mechanics are part of the modeling surface.
  • Private equity
    5–15% allocation to PE and venture — typically via interval funds, registered fund-of-funds, or single-fund commitments. K-1 ingestion and capital-call schedule modeling are real testing requirements.
  • Family limited partnership
    FLPs are used for intra-family asset consolidation and discount-driven transfer planning. §2704 valuation-discount considerations and operating-purpose substantiation are the active legal surface.
  • Estate tax planning
    Lifetime gift exemption is in play but not yet exhausted at this tier. State estate-tax exposure (NY, MA, WA, OR) is often a more immediate driver than federal estate tax — state thresholds sit well below the federal exemption.
  • Philanthropy
    Donor-advised funds at meaningful scale; private foundations contemplated but typically not executed at this wealth tier (more common at H-03). CRTs and CLATs appear as concentrated-position-unwind vehicles.

Corpus signature

n = 25 households

Aggregated across the 25 H-02 households in the shipped v3 corpus corpus. Numbers describe the corpus, not population claims.

Median income
$500k
p25–p75 $420k–$640k
Median net worth
$9.2M
mean $9.2M
Liquid net worth
$4.1M
median
Investable assets
$5.5M
median
Income distribution
$300k–475k
10
$475k–650k
9
$650k–825k
3
$825k–1m
3
Net-worth distribution
$4.9m–7.2m
7
$7.2m–9.5m
8
$9.5m–11.8m
7
$11.8m–14.2m
3
Goals across the corpus
Retirement25 / 25
Debt payoff16 / 25
Education funding14 / 25
Home purchase4 / 25
Emergency fund3 / 25
Liability composition
Credit cards25 / 25
Mortgages21 / 25
Student loans16 / 25
Auto loans7 / 25
  • 21 of 25 (84%) are homeowners; the remainder rent.
  • CA, NY, TX account for 12 of 25 households — 48% of the corpus.
  • Median adult-member age is 52 (range 42–68 across primaries and spouses).
  • 14 of 25 (56%) carry one or more dependents.
  • Married filing jointly is the dominant filing status (24 of 25).

Representative household

H-02-seed-24
Christopher F.Married filing jointly·Buffalo-Cheektowaga, NY

Christopher and Rebecca sit near the centre of the H-02 distribution — combined income at the corpus median, net worth slightly above. The diagnostic pattern is the goal-funding mix: on track for the debt-payoff goal that dominates this cohort, behind on retirement and education funding. They're the household that breaks naive 'they have $10M, they're fine' logic in your software.

Combined income
$499,888
Net worth
$10,705,814
Liquid NW
$4,554,677
Ages
54 / 53
Top goals on this household
Retirement
$8,421,900
Education funding
$911,630
Debt payoff
$13,877

Schema fields covered

Every H-02 household ships with — at minimum — these JSON fields populated. The full schema is documented in the data set you purchase.

members[].age
income.combined_gross
net_worth.total
filing_status
accounts.taxable.lots[].acquisition_date
accounts.taxable.lots[].cost_basis
accounts.taxable.lots[].unrealized_pnl
taxes.wash_sale_flags

Who builds against this archetype

Three buyer profiles draw on H-02 most heavily. Wealth-platform engineering teams use it to validate UX flows that only activate above the $3M asset threshold — alternative-investment suitability gates, accredited-investor confirmations, fee-tier transitions, dedicated-advisor routing. Compliance teams use it to populate Reg BI rollover scenarios and concentrated-position disclosures where the dollar magnitudes matter. Tax-software teams use it for AMT and QSBS edge cases, charitable-deduction stacking, and trust-income flow-through testing.

Testing scenarios this corpus is calibrated for

  • 01Estate-plan visualization with GRAT remainder values, including the grantor-survives-term and grantor-dies-during-term branches
  • 02Reg BI rollover suitability conversations for primaries aged 50–62 with $4M+ in qualified-plan assets
  • 03Concentrated-position unwind modeling, including exchange funds, 10b5-1 plans, and charitable-remainder strategies
  • 04AMT preference-item testing with ISO exercise scenarios layered on existing W-2 income of $400k–$800k
  • 05Fee-disclosure rendering for hybrid AUM-plus-planning engagements
  • 06Private-equity capital-call and K-1 ingestion against portfolios with 5–15% alts allocation

Edge cases and what's not in this corpus

H-02 households are calibrated as US-domiciled, single-jurisdiction estate situations. Cross-border complexity (non-US spouse, foreign trusts, expat tax) is excluded by design — if you need that, the F-06 international-worker overlay layered onto H-tier balances is closer to the right tool. The corpus also assumes liquidity events have already occurred; pre-liquidity founders with paper wealth in the same range live in P-01 and P-02. Recently widowed households at this wealth tier are H-04. Finally, no H-02 household carries an active business interest greater than 30% of net worth; concentrated operator-owners belong in P-02 or SB-03.

Calibration notes

Income and net-worth bands during v3 synthesis were anchored to the upper percentile bands of the Survey of Consumer Finances, with the alternative-asset allocation shape informed by Cerulli affluent-practice benchmarks. State distribution is intentionally over-weighted toward CA, NY, and TX because the state-estate-tax and high-marginal-rate testing surface concentrates there. Documented priors for v3 are partial; per CLAUDE.md §9 the corpus is frozen and not regenerable from current code, so calibration claims are descriptive rather than reproducible.

How this differs from related archetypes

Frequently asked questions

What does the H-02 archetype represent?+

H-02 — High Net Worth ($3M–$10M) is the household at the inflection point where estate planning becomes mandatory and family-office economics start to pencil. Typical primaries are 45–65, married, with GRATs and irrevocable trusts in motion, 5–15% alternative-asset allocation, and one or two concentrated positions anchoring the balance sheet.

Why is the $3M–$10M band a specific archetype rather than spanning into H-03?+

Because below $3M the estate-tax and concentrated-position-unwind structures rarely pencil, and above $10M households typically have family-office relationships and bespoke structures that don't generalize. The $3M–$10M band is the messy middle where wealth-tech products encounter standardized GRATs, SLATs, and ILITs — exactly the surface most buyers need to test.

What income and net-worth range does H-02 cover?+

Combined gross income median is $499,888 with a 25–75 range of roughly $420k to $640k. Median net worth is $9.18M with $4.13M median liquid. The net-worth distribution spans $4.9M to $14.2M with the bulk between $7M and $12M.

Does H-02 include private-equity exposure?+

Yes — 5–15% allocation to PE and venture is typical, modeled via interval funds, registered fund-of-funds, and single-fund commitments. K-1 ingestion and capital-call schedule modeling are part of the corpus's testing surface, though per-fund holdings are not stored as structured data.

Which data sets include H-02 households?+

H-02 is tagged for six bundles — B02, B05, B07, B11, B12, and B20 — covering tax planning, executive compensation, alternative investments, business planning, estate planning, and equity compensation. See the right-hand sidebar for the data sets that ship H-02 households.

Is the H-02 corpus regenerable?+

No. The shipped v3 corpus is frozen and not regenerable from current code (drift was confirmed on 2026-05-09 per CLAUDE.md §9). Sampler improvements land in a future v4 release with per-archetype golden fixtures in CI.

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