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Financial advisors continue to have a relatively limited role in advising clients on retirement savings rollovers, according to new data on money movement from research firm Hearts & Wallets.
According to the analysis of money moves by nearly 6,000 households between financial firms, savers made a record $1 trillion in rollovers last year. But of that pot, advisors were involved in just 22% of it, either by suggesting a move or by bringing a client with them in a transition.
“Not much of the $1 trillion is being influenced by advisors,” said Laura Varas, CEO and founder of Hearts & Wallets. “Consumers are doing a lot of shopping on their own.”
The $1 trillion in rollovers was the highest figure Hearts & Wallets has recorded since 2015. But, according to the household survey, it’s also a precursor to more money moves in 2026. The researchers estimate that 74 million households have recently moved or are thinking about moving investable assets across financial firms—up by 15 million households from a 4-year norm of about 60 million households in any 12-month period.
According to Investment Company Institute data released last week, savings in individual retirement accounts, which are more typically engaged on by advisors, rose to $18.9 trillion through the third quarter of 2025. Another $13.9 trillion is held in defined contribution plans such as 401(k)s. When factoring in private-sector defined benefit plans, government defined benefit plans and annuity reserves, total retirement savings are up 4.5% to $48.1 trillion from the second quarter.
On an individual basis, rollover sums can be small by wealth management standards, ranging from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands. Hearts & Wallets put the average rollover at $133,000, with 83% below $100,000 and 16% above $100,000, with many above $250,000.
Advisor-influenced rollover moves did tick up slightly year-over-year in 2025 to 22% of transactions, up from 17% in 2024. But Varas pointed to the opportunity for advisors to be more engaged with rollovers, which she said will take strong brand recognition and marketing.
“There’s more white space than blue space here,” she said. “I think you’ve got to make sure you’re affiliated with a home office that has some heft in its ability to deliver marketing messages and interest people in its brand.”
She also sees the data pointing to the importance of advisors engaging with clients on the reasons or benefits for money moves.
The most common reasons people rolled over money were “simplify my finances,” “consolidate for better planning,” and “better service.”
“In rollovers, what’s motivating the most dollar volume—because it’s more important to the bigger rollovers—is to consolidate for better planning,” Varas said. “I think for advisors that’s in line with where a lot of them are taking their practices.”
Varas and team also found that 401(k) record keepers and employers are making inroads in retaining client rollover assets by offering more investment options and services. Rollovers into new employer plans doubled to an estimated $160 billion at the end of 2025, as compared to $80 billion in 2022. The move to new employer plans was especially common among those in late career, ages 53 to 64.
Among individual firms, Charles Schwab ranked first in net rollover inflows. It was followed by Edward Jones, Vanguard, Raymond James and LPL. The firms that saw the most net outflows were Fidelity Investments, Principal Financial Group, Empower and Alight—which are among the country’s largest defined contribution record keepers.
Varas, who had been an executive at Fidelity and Citigroup before founding her Rye, N.Y.-based research firm, said the data is intended to unearth money movement across “financial stores” to show broader trends that individual financial services firms can’t see on their own.
Hearts & Wallets drew from its Investor Quantitative Database, which contains 135 million data points from over 85,000 U.S. households spanning 15 years; the analysis for this report drew on 5,981 U.S. households.