Wealth Transfer Readiness Assessment

Why this Data Set exists

Estate readiness scoring is one of the few planning surfaces where a single number — the readiness score — meaningfully shifts client behaviour. The number forces a conversation that 'you should review your estate plan' doesn't. But the score has to be defensible: it has to integrate document inventory, beneficiary alignment, trust structures, gifting strategy, and the heir-side preparedness. A scoring algorithm that produces a number you can't defend in client conversation isn't useful.

Building a defensible scoring tool requires test data with the full readiness picture structured. This is where most fixture data falls short. A household's GST exemption usage interacts with its trust structures interacts with its annual gifting strategy interacts with its expected estate value at death. Without all of these structured together, the readiness score collapses to whichever input is most easily measured (typically document completeness alone, which doesn't capture readiness in any meaningful sense).

This Data Set provides the integrated picture. 110 households where document inventory, beneficiary alignment, trust structures, gifting histories, charitable giving, and GST tracking are all structured and reconciled. The result is a corpus where a readiness scoring algorithm can be developed and validated honestly — including the cases where two households with the same total wealth have very different readiness scores because of structural differences in their planning.

Use Cases

Who uses this Data Set

What's inside

The 110 households cluster around eight HNW and UHNW archetypes: peak-earner corporate executives (P-01) who have built first trusts; established business owners (P-02) approaching exit-event planning; sudden-wealth recipients (P-06) navigating their first major estate decisions; affluent investors and HNW families (H-01, H-02) with active estate planning; widowed HNW spouses (H-04) consolidating after a loss; estate-planning clients as grantors (E-02); and the niche cases of professional athletes and entertainers (N-03) with concentrated career-earnings.

Every household has a structured estate readiness score on a 0-100 scale, computed from four sub-scores: document completeness (will, trust, ancillary documents — 25% weight); beneficiary alignment (whether designations match will/trust intent — 20% weight); planning-structure sophistication (presence of trusts appropriate to the wealth tier — 30% weight); and gifting-strategy activity (annual exclusion gifting + GST allocation usage — 25% weight). The structured trust-structure data captures every trust's type, grantor status, beneficiary structure, and GST exemption allocation. Annual gifting history covers the past 5 years with recipient and amount per year. Charitable giving totals and the structures used (DAF, CRT, CLT, private foundation) are documented.

The Data Set ships as JSON, CSV, and Parquet. The WealthSynth Methodology PDF documents the readiness-scoring methodology with each sub-score's calibration source, the trust-structure taxonomy, the charitable-giving structure taxonomy, and the GST-exemption tracking methodology.

Preview a sample household

A redacted summary of one household from this Data Set — names, employers, exact balances, and metro area are stripped. Ages are bucketed, income and net worth are reported as bands. The full record (and all 110 like it) ships in the ZIP.

Technical Highlights

Sample Schema Fields

{
  "estate.readiness_score": <value>,
  "estate.trust_structures[]": <value>,
  "estate.annual_gifting_history": <value>,
  "philanthropy.charitable_giving_total": <value>,
  "estate.gst_exemption_remaining": <value>
}

Sample queries

households.filter(h =>
  h.assets.total > 5_000_000 &&
  h.estate.readiness_score < 50
).sort((a, b) =>
  b.assets.total - a.assets.total)

households.filter(h =>
  h.estate.gst_exemption_used < 6_805_000 &&
  h.estate.beneficiaries_by_account.some(b =>
    ['grandchild', 'great_grandchild'].includes(
      b.beneficiary_relationship))
)

households.filter(h =>
  h.philanthropy.charitable_giving_total > 50000 &&
  !h.philanthropy.has_tax_efficient_structure
)

households.map(h => ({
  id: h.id,
  overall: h.estate.readiness_score,
  document_completeness: h.estate.score_components.documents,
  beneficiary_alignment: h.estate.score_components.beneficiaries,
  structure_sophistication: h.estate.score_components.structure,
  gifting_activity: h.estate.score_components.gifting
}))

Methodology

Each household's readiness score is computed against a structurally complete model. Document completeness scores against the canonical estate-document set (will, revocable trust, durable POA, healthcare directive, HIPAA authorization, plus any trust-specific documents). Beneficiary alignment scores by checking each account designation against the household's stated will/trust intent. Structure sophistication scores against a wealth-tier-appropriate baseline (a $30M family without a GST-exempt trust scores lower than the same family with one). Gifting activity scores annual-exclusion-gift utilisation rate and GST-exempt-gift activity. The four sub-scores are weighted to produce the overall 0-100 score. Calibration sources include the Northern Trust 'Family Wealth Planning' studies, the FOX (Family Office Exchange) readiness assessment framework, and the Schwab Charitable annual giving studies. The corpus passes the WealthSynth consistency validator (readiness-score components reconcile with the underlying structured data; trust structures are internally complete; GST allocations are mathematically consistent) and the LLM-as-judge gate. Annual refresh tracks federal exemption changes, GST exemption changes, and methodology updates.

Included Archetypes (8)

Frequently asked questions