Affluent Families Are Paying Tens of Thousands for Financial Advice, and Still Carrying the Risk Alone, WestPac Wealth Partners Warns

July 9, 2026 - 00:17

WestPac Wealth Partners has released mid-year planning guidance highlighting a persistent blind spot for wealthy families: concentration risk. The firm warns that business owners, executives, and professionals with equity compensation often hold the bulk of their net worth in a single company or stock position, leaving them dangerously exposed.

The warning comes with an ironic twist. According to the firm, most of these families are already paying a team of advisors including a CPA, an attorney, and a wealth manager. Combined, these professionals often cost tens of thousands of dollars per year. Yet the concentration risk remains untouched.

WestPac argues that the problem is not a lack of advice, but a lack of coordinated advice. Each professional may focus on their own specialty without addressing the single biggest threat to the family's financial future. The firm suggests that without a central strategy to diversify concentrated holdings, wealthy families are essentially self-insuring against a catastrophic loss that their paid advisors are not solving.