TELL CLIENTS: START TALKINGTELL CLIENTS: START TALKING

Thrupthi Reddy, senior editor, Trusts & Estates, New York

Advisors take note: Baby Boomers and their parents need to do some serious talking. According to a new study, Americans in their 70s are more at ease talking about estate-planning issues than people in their children's generation are. This is the finding of the latest study in the Hartford, Conn.-based Hartford Financial Services Group's “Family Conversations” survey series.

The survey, released in September, found that 76 percent of the 500 older respondents (aged 70 to 79, with at least $75,000 in assets and one child) said they actually wanted to discuss such topics as their estate planning, medical care and final arrangements with their offspring. Only 45 percent of the 450 Boom...