A new study on solo aging is putting a less familiar category of retirement risk in front of financial advisors: whether a client’s financial and estate plans can actually function when dependable personal support is unavailable. The 2026 Navigating Solo Community Snapshot Survey, summarized in a newly released white paper, collected responses from 507 people and found that only 28.2% described themselves as somewhat or very confident in their solo-aging plans. The remaining 71.8% fell into categories including neutral, unsure, overwhelmed or having no plan, a result that places practical preparedness alongside investment performance, longevity and healthcare expenses as an emerging issue for wealth managers.

The findings are particularly relevant because solo aging is broader than simply living alone or never marrying. The paper frames it as a planning condition that can arise whenever reliable support cannot safely be assumed. A widowed client may qualify. So may someone who is married but whose spouse has health limitations, or a parent whose adult children live far away or cannot realistically coordinate care. Divorce, bereavement, geographic dispersion and changes in health can also turn a previously conventional retirement plan into a solo-aging situation with relatively little warning.

That distinction matters for advisors because many established retirement-planning models implicitly assume that at least some nonfinancial responsibilities will be handled by relatives. A spouse may drive a client home after a procedure, an adult child may organize medical appointments, a sibling may respond during an emergency, or a family member may help administer bills and property after a cognitive decline. When those people are unavailable, the function does not disappear. It can instead become an expense, a logistical problem or both.

The survey suggests those needs tend to accumulate rather than arise individually. Some 95.9% of respondents selected at least two planning concerns, while 86.0% identified three or more. Respondents chose an average of 4.94 concerns among the areas presented. Health, housing, finances, transportation, social connection, decision-making, trustworthy assistance, emergency preparation and cognitive change frequently appeared in combination. Managing health conditions alone was identified as a concern by 70.4% of respondents.

For wealth management firms, that interconnectedness complicates the familiar practice of treating retirement planning as a sequence of discrete tasks. A client may have a sufficient portfolio, an estate plan and long-term-care insurance yet still lack a workable process for activating those resources during an emergency. Likewise, a power of attorney may establish legal authority without answering whether the designated person understands the responsibility, has agreed to perform it, lives close enough to act or remains capable of doing so years later.

The white paper describes the solution as building an “Architecture of Support,” meaning an intentionally organized combination of trusted individuals, professionals, services, communication channels, clearly defined responsibilities and backup options. The concept moves beyond asking clients whom they know. Instead, it focuses on whether specific responsibilities have dependable coverage. For advisors, that can mean separating the concept of an emergency contact from the more demanding question of who could coordinate a hospital discharge, manage recurring bills during incapacity or supervise a transition into assisted living.

That approach could alter discovery conversations within advisory practices. Traditional onboarding commonly captures marital status, beneficiaries, dependents, insurance coverage, estate documents and emergency contacts. A solo-aware process would go further by asking who could realistically perform important roles, whether those people have agreed, whether alternatives exist and what each role could cost if professional assistance eventually becomes necessary.

The financial implications are captured in another concept introduced by the report: the “Solo Aging Support Premium.” The paper does not calculate a standardized dollar amount. Instead, it uses the term to describe the additional financial burden that can arise when services available informally to other households must be purchased. Examples can include transportation, appointment accompaniment, professional care coordination, household support, fiduciary services and emergency backup.

That distinction could have direct consequences for retirement-income modeling. Advisors typically stress-test portfolios against inflation, market drawdowns, longevity, healthcare spending and long-term-care costs. Solo-aging assumptions add another potential layer of recurring or episodic expenses. A client may need larger liquidity reserves or a higher allowance for paid support even before entering a formal long-term-care setting. Those costs may also arrive unevenly, accelerating after illness, hospitalization, loss of mobility or cognitive impairment.

Planning may therefore require scenarios that examine not only how much care costs but who will organize it. Paying a home-health aide, for example, is different from arranging schedules, overseeing services, communicating with clinicians and resolving disruptions. Families often perform those coordinating functions without explicitly pricing their time. When no reliable relative is available, professional coordination may itself become a line item.

The survey also points to barriers outside the control of individual investors. About 65.3% of respondents identified systems not designed for people without immediate family as an obstacle, while 43.4% cited systems not designed for people without caregivers. Another 38.5% pointed to a lack of trusted professionals. Those responses indicate that the challenge is not simply convincing clients to prepare earlier. A carefully prepared individual may still encounter healthcare providers, institutions or service systems whose procedures assume that a spouse, child or caregiver will be available.

The white paper calls for what it terms “Solo-Aware” professional practice, in which support is assessed based on what is actually available rather than inferred from marital status, family structure or social relationships. For advisory firms, that principle may encourage closer coordination with estate attorneys, professional fiduciaries, geriatric care managers, patient advocates, insurance specialists and other providers. The advisor does not necessarily perform those functions, but can help clients identify where gaps exist and incorporate the potential financial consequences into the broader wealth plan.

Separate research from Ameriprise Financial reinforces the distinction between being capable with money today and feeling prepared for later-life decisions. Its “Flying Solo: Navigating Financial Autonomy” study, released in May, surveyed 3,003 financially solo U.S. adults ages 25 to 75 who were single, divorced, separated or widowed and had average investable assets exceeding $700,000. Ameriprise found that 85% felt confident managing their money, yet 85% also reported at least one concern related to aging alone.

The most frequently cited Ameriprise concerns included running out of savings at 43%, affording long-term care at 42%, becoming a financial burden on others at 41%, and lacking emotional support later in life at 30%. The study also showed incomplete adoption of several conventional planning protections. Only 37% reported having a current formal will, 41% an updated healthcare directive and 38% an updated financial power of attorney. Twenty-nine percent reported long-term-care insurance.

Those numbers matter for advisors serving affluent households because the challenge cannot automatically be solved through higher net worth. Greater assets can make professional services more affordable, but wealth does not itself appoint a decision-maker, coordinate medical care or create a trustworthy emergency network. High-net-worth clients who are aging solo may therefore require more institutionalized support arrangements precisely because their financial affairs, real estate, trusts, private investments or business interests can be more complex to administer during incapacity.

Ameriprise also found substantial engagement with professional advice among financially solo investors. Fifty-two percent of respondents said they worked with a financial advisor, rising to 62% among widowed respondents. Among those with advisors, 60% said ongoing conversations helped them prepare for uncertainty. Seventy-two percent said their advisor helped them envision retirement, including decisions around timing, income planning, budgeting and Social Security.

For advisory businesses, that creates both an opportunity and a responsibility. Firms increasingly compete on planning depth rather than investment selection alone, and solo-aging preparation can become another test of whether a wealth-management relationship covers the client’s full financial life. Advisors able to identify support gaps before a crisis may deliver value that is difficult to replicate through portfolio management alone. At the same time, firms need clear boundaries around legal, medical and caregiving decisions and appropriate referral networks when a client’s needs extend beyond the advisor’s professional role.

Technology may help document instructions, contacts and professional relationships, but the survey indicates that information storage is not equivalent to operational readiness. A digital vault can hold a power of attorney, insurance policy and care preferences, yet someone must know the system exists, have permission to access it and understand what action to take. The report’s emphasis on backup arrangements is therefore significant: support structures need redundancy because designated helpers can themselves become unavailable.

The findings may also change how advisors discuss housing. Housing decisions for solo agers are often framed around affordability and lifestyle, but proximity to medical services, transportation, community networks and reliable assistance can become financially relevant. Remaining in a large home may look sustainable under a conventional withdrawal-rate analysis while becoming considerably less practical if the client must separately purchase transportation, property management, household assistance and care coordination.

Estate planning represents another area where execution risk deserves greater attention. Naming an agent under a financial power of attorney or a healthcare proxy is an important legal step, but the effectiveness of those documents depends on the designated person’s willingness and ability to act. Advisors reviewing beneficiary and estate-planning information with clients may therefore need to distinguish between documents being complete and the underlying support plan being workable.

The Navigating Solo study should nevertheless be interpreted within its methodological boundaries. The research was structured as a community snapshot rather than a nationally representative survey. Participation was voluntary and self-selected, respondents were predominantly female and White, and the Northeast and West had greater geographic representation. The authors explicitly caution that percentages from the 507 participants should not be treated as national prevalence estimates.

That limitation does not eliminate the planning questions raised by the findings. Instead, the report provides a framework for examining risks that traditional retirement planning may leave unpriced or unassigned. For advisors, one of the most consequential questions may no longer be simply whether a client has enough assets to finance retirement, but whether the client has a functioning system for converting those assets into reliable assistance when independence declines.

The practical implication is a broader definition of retirement readiness. Portfolio construction, tax strategy, insurance, estate planning and withdrawal sequencing remain core components, but they may need to be connected to explicit decisions about care coordination, emergency support, transportation, housing and decision-making authority. Where family support cannot be assumed, those functions need either identified people, professional substitutes or financial resources reserved to obtain them.

As the number of Americans managing financial lives independently remains significant, the issue is likely to become increasingly relevant to wealth-management practices. The latest survey does not establish a universal cost of solo aging or a national estimate of preparedness. It does, however, highlight a planning gap: clients can appear financially organized on paper while remaining uncertain about who will make the plan work in practice. For advisors serving older and financially independent households, bridging that gap is becoming an increasingly important part of comprehensive retirement planning.