As an adult, a point may arrive when you realize that your aging parents or other older relatives could use your help managing their finances.
It can be a tricky transition, experts say, depending on family dynamics and the specifics of the situation.
“There are two things potentially in conflict — adult children are worried about safety and security, and parents are worried about autonomy and independence,” said certified financial planner Lisa Kirchenbauer, a founding partner and senior advisor for Omega Wealth Management in Arlington, Virginia.
Yet with an aging U.S. population living longer, adult children may want to lay the groundwork to help long before they need to step in, experts say.
The over-65 population continues to grow
The U.S.’s age 65-plus population topped 61.2 million in 2024, up 13% from 54.2 million in 2020, according to the Census Bureau. Once a person reaches age 65, life expectancy is another 20.8 years for women, up from 19 years in 2000, and 18.4 additional years for men, up from 16 more years in 2000, according to 2024 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The age group is a prime target for fraudsters. Last year, scams reported to the Federal Trade Commission by adults age 60 and older reached $2.4 billion, up from $1.9 billion in 2023 and $600 million in 2020. Scams involving individual losses of $100,000 or more accounted for $1.6 billion of the total amount.
Older Americans are also more likely to need some sort of care. Of the estimated 63 million caregivers — whose duties may include helping manage finances — in the U.S., 48% are helping individuals ages 75 and older, according to a 2025 joint report by AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving, a nonprofit advocacy and research group focused on caregivers. Another 38% care for those ages 50 to 74. Three in five caregivers are women, the report shows.
At the same time, aging isn’t one-size-fits-all: Many people remain healthy and independent well into later years, making it difficult to predict what kind of help — if any — a loved one may eventually need.
Nevertheless, the potential for “financial caretaking … should be a family conversation many years before the need arises,” said certified financial planner Carolyn McClanahan, founder of Life Planning Partners in Jacksonville, Florida, and a member of the CNBC Financial Advisor Council.
How to start a conversation
It’s best to use a delicate approach for financial caregiving conversations, experts say.
“Sometimes I coach my clients to use us as an excuse to say, ‘I just met with my financial planner about my estate plan and financial organization, and I’m curious about how you organize your finances, or when was the last time you updated your estate plan,'” Kirchenbauer said.
“You want to be really low-key and just start to understand how they organize their finances and where their important documents are,” she said. “That’s a great step in the right direction.”
You want to be really low-key and just start to understand how they organize their finances and where their important documents are.
Lisa Kirchenbauer
Founding partner and senior advisor for Omega Wealth Management
You should also aim to find out if your parent or family member works with any professionals — i.e., whether a financial advisor or accountant — and whether it would make sense for you to meet with them, Kirchenbauer said.
Another key thing is to know how to access their user IDs and passwords if they do banking or bill-paying online, she said.
Overall, Kirchenbauer said, you want to start gently to understand their process. “But if you move too quickly and aggressively, chances are they’ll shut you down,” she said.
Any transition should be done on the parent’s terms, “unless they’re facing issues that put them at risk of fraud and abuse,” McClanahan said. “Start with just looking over what the person is doing, then assist them with financial management, then take over the entire process.”
Some warning signs that it’s time to take over can be cognitive or practical, said CFP Vincent DeCrow, founder and wealth advisor at RISE Investments in Chicago. Those cues may include falling victim to financial scams, as well as “unusual or impulsive purchases, confusion about how much money they have, or collection notices and late fees associated with unpaid bills,” DeCrow said.
Power of attorney may be an option
If your intent is to assume control over paying their bills and managing their financial accounts, there are a few ways to do so if the parent is amenable.
The first is through being given power of attorney for their finances. This is generally considered a key estate-planning document, which some older adults already have in place.
If your parent determines that authority should be given to you, it can be structured to be used immediately or to go into effect upon a pre-defined event, such as cognitive impairment, said DeCrow. The document also “must be created prior to any material cognitive decline occurring,” he said.
It’s worth checking if the financial institutions where your parents hold their accounts require you to fill out a specific legal form to access the accounts, experts say. Some investment custodians may not recognize a power of attorney unless a specific document is officially attached to the account.
Alternatively, your parents’ bank may offer what’s called a convenience account or agency account, which would give you the ability to access your parents’ account without being a joint owner.
Be cautious of becoming a joint owner on accounts
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Your parent may also be able to add you to their accounts as a joint owner, but there are some reasons to be cautious about doing that, experts say.
Once you’re added to accounts, “they legally become yours as well,” said CFP Dinon Hughes, a financial consultant and partner with Nvest Financial in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
“Yes, that means you have access to the funds, but it also means that your creditors or any potential lawsuit down the road” may try to get at those funds as well, Hughes said.
Also, after your parent passes away, the account would legally be yours. “This can create division if there are other siblings in the picture,” Hughes said.
Additionally, if you are named as an owner on assets you would have inherited — say, a house or investments in a brokerage account — you may miss out on what’s known as a step-up in basis. This basically resets the value of inherited assets to their fair market value at the original owner’s death. In that case, if you sell the inherited asset, you’d owe no capital gains tax on the difference in value between when your parents bought the house and when they died.
However, “if you are added to the account before their passing, you are treated as an equal owner,” Hughes said. “So that brokerage account that was your father’s that he adds you on in his final months only gets a half step-up in basis rather than a full step-up.”
Typically, being given financial power of attorney is usually the best solution, Hughes said. Or, if they have their assets in a trust, naming you as a trustee can work.
