In recent years, generational transition has emerged as one of the main forces reshaping wealth management. But it isn’t the only one. Also redefining needs, tools and service models is the growing international character of HNW and UHNW families, increasingly spread across residences, assets and interests in multiple jurisdictions. This scenario demands a shift in wealth planning, which is now called upon to follow the family and its assets over time and beyond national borders. This is where private insurance can express one of its main strengths and its ability to adapt to different legal and tax contexts, to increasingly international, long-term-oriented families. Ugo de Grenet, Head of High Net Wealth – Continental Europe and LatAm at Utmost Group, discusses this with We Wealth.
How is this growing mobility changing clients’ needs and the way wealth needs to be structured over the long term?
International mobility is no longer an exception: it affects many HNW and UHNW families and can translate into different tax residencies within the same family, assets held in multiple markets, or children who study abroad and choose to stay. All of this has an impact on planning solutions, which must be able to adapt to changes in clients’ residence and tax treatment. For this reason, they need to be designed to remain effective over the very long term, not only based on the context that exists at the moment the plan is put in place.
Interest in insurance solutions is growing significantly. What structural trends are you observing?
We are facing real demand, not a short-lived trend. Interest in life insurance policies stems from structural changes in the way families manage and think about wealth, rather than from a single market event. Compared to the past, clients think ahead and more carefully about everything related to succession and governance, in order to plan continuity between generations. Many of these decisions are made in an international context, with assets held across different jurisdictions. This creates demand for solutions capable of adapting to the client without having to be rebuilt from scratch as circumstances change. From this point of view, private insurance is one of the most flexible and versatile tools, provided the insurance company is actually able to adjust the policy contract to the new fiscal and legal context.
What needs do these solutions address, and what role can they play for international families and family offices?
Private insurance cannot be treated solely as a financial tool because it covers a range of legal and governance aspects. A life insurance policy is particularly well suited to international families because it allows wealth to be centralized in a single contract, even when managed by multiple banks in different countries, allows beneficiaries’ rights to be defined, and supports long-term planning. Other solutions, such as trusts, companies and family agreements, struggle to effectively cross the national borders for which they were originally designed.
The ability to support the portability of the policy and to adapt its terms according to new legal and tax needs are among the reasons why insurance works so well for mobile families, provided it is designed and supported by an insurer with the right jurisdictional coverage and operational capability. In addition, the added value of a life insurance policy emerges above all upon the death of the insured, when the level of complexity increases.
In these complex phases, such as succession and generational transition, what is the added value of insurance solutions?
It is precisely at the time of intergenerational transfer that the structural weaknesses of certain plans emerge or, worse still, the absence of careful planning. In international families, problems often arise from differing inheritance rules, conflicting tax regimes and ineffective governance. Faced with these challenges, insurance can guarantee clarity and predictability, reduce the risk of wealth fragmentation, and foster smoother, more secure transitions. It is not just about transferring wealth quickly, but about maintaining stability and control over family wealth over the long term. As an ever-greater share of entrepreneurial wealth passes to the next generation, families need structures that adapt as circumstances change, not solutions that have to be rebuilt every few years.
What are the essential elements for building effective, long-lasting solutions?
The validity of a long-term solution depends on the characteristics of the product and the capabilities of the provider. The portability of a policy and the ability to adapt it over time depend on the insurer’s expertise and commitment to providing cutting-edge solutions. Family offices should look for a company with cross-market jurisdictional expertise, solid governance and compliance with the regulations in force in various markets and in Italy, as well as operational agility to manage changes over time, including procedural ones. The real test is not getting through the first day, but handling change: transfers, successions, restructurings, new generations and new investment solutions. If long-term planning is truly the goal, one must rely on solutions — and above all on providers — that have customization and flexibility in their DNA.
Article taken from issue no. 5 of Family Office & Family Business Magazine. Subscribe here to read the Magazine in print or digital format.
