Succession planning versus continuity planning in family offices

Succession planning answers who will hold ownership and authority after the current generation, and when. Continuity planning answers how the family office keeps operating through that handover and through the departure of any key person, planned or not. The survey evidence shows offices have made more progress on the first than on the second. UBS's Global Family Office Report 2026 found that 57% of offices have a wealth succession plan for family members, while only 35% have a succession plan for the family office itself and 27% have an organised process to prepare the next generation. A family can know exactly who inherits and still have no answer to what happens if the chief investment officer leaves next month.

What the surveys count as a plan

Headline figures vary because surveys ask different questions of different populations.

The 2025 RBC and Campden Wealth report shows the sharpest year-on-year movement, from 53% to 69%. The KPMG and Agreus 2025 benchmark finds just over half with a defined plan and notes that 54% operate without a family board and 36% without an investment committee. J.P. Morgan's 2026 report frames the issue as risk rather than compliance, with a third of respondents placing succession gaps for key decision-makers in their top three threats to continuity. Deloitte's 2026 study of large family businesses shows that having "some form" of plan is now common at 89%, but only half call it well developed, and 40% expect to change chief executive within a decade.

Where succession planning stops

Most succession plans cover ownership, control and estate structures. They set out who inherits shares, who sits on which board and how the founder's authority passes. The timing data shows why this is urgent: Bank of America's 2025 study found 59% of offices expecting the principal to hand over within ten years and 86% having identified at least one family member who could take over, while Campden found 47% of North American offices expecting control to pass within ten years and 22% within five. Bank of America also found that over half of offices had not communicated the plan to everyone affected.

What these plans usually do not cover is the office as an operating business. A succession plan can be complete and still leave open who signs capital calls if the chief financial officer is unavailable, where the custodian passwords are kept, which investment decisions a deputy may take, and how reporting continues if the one person who built the consolidation spreadsheet resigns.

What continuity planning adds

Continuity planning starts from the office's functions rather than the family's ownership. Morgan Stanley observed in May 2026 that family offices most often professionalise after a disruption, naming liquidity events, generational transfers and leadership turnover as the triggers, and that the departure of a chief investment officer, chief financial officer or executive director can undermine institutional memory where responsibilities are concentrated. Crain Currency reported in June 2026 on one adviser who runs an annual stress test removing a key person on paper to see whether the business still functions.

A continuity plan typically includes documented decision rights and delegated authorities, named deputies for each critical role, a written operating manual (UBS found only 37% of offices have a strategy or operating manual), a process to select and review external providers (31% in the UBS data), and risk management beyond investments, which UBS found in only 28% of offices. It also covers the office's own leadership succession, the 35% figure in the UBS report, separately from the family's.

Putting the two together

The practical sequence most offices follow is to settle the family succession plan first, since it determines whose instructions the office will take, and then to build continuity planning around the functions that would fail without a specific person. Both plans need owners, review dates and a communication protocol. The governance structures that hold them, including a board with oversight (49% of offices in the UBS data) and clear decision rights, are described in the family office governance framework. Executive turnover and key person risk are examined in succession inside the office.