3 Wealth-Preservation Moves You Can Copy From the Top 1%

According to Acorns’ 2026 Financial Wellness Report, 45% of Americans admitted to experiencing anxiety due to financial pressure. However, the report found that financial education was helpful, as those who learned about money at home and at school had a net worth 121% higher than those without any. The good news is that you can always learn from others and formal education to change your trajectory.

The following are some ways the super-rich protect their wealth. We will also explore how everyday people can replicate these money moves.

1. Diversifying Investments

“Wealthy investors often spread their money across multiple asset classes instead of relying solely on Wall Street products like stocks and bonds,” said Daniel Gleich, financial expert, board member, and shareholder at Madison Trust Company. “This can include alternative assets such as real estate, private lending, precious metals and more.”

The top 1% will spread out their investments so they don’t have to worry about market instability and have a potential hedge against inflation, since so much is out of our control when it comes to building wealth. 

How Can Regular People Copy This?

Gleich said everyday investors can take a similar approach through tools like self-directed IRAs, which allow retirement savings to be invested in a wider range of alternative assets while maintaining the tax advantages of an IRA. He elaborated, “Utilizing a self-directed IRA to invest in alternative assets enables you to spread your retirement savings across different asset classes, helping to potentially protect your retirement savings.”

2. Not Putting Assets in Their Names

“One of the ways the super-rich protect their wealth is they don’t put assets in their own name,” remarked Barry Nussbaum, the owner and senior lawyer at Nussbaum Law. “Instead, they own property, investments and business assets through a separate legal entity such as a trust or a holding company.”

Nussbaum also noted the top 1% may even take it a step further with an irrevocable trust, because it transfers assets out of personal control so creditors or claims against them cannot reach them. The setup fee is a few thousand dollars in legal fees, but the protection it creates is worth far more than the initial investment when a legal or financial dispute arises.

How Can Regular People Copy This?

As a regular person, you can embrace this strategy by working with a lawyer to establish a holding company or a family trust. Nussbaum added, “A holding company is not a company that sells products or services. It’s purely a legal container that exists on paper to own your assets. You still make all the decisions, you still control everything, but legally it’s the company’s assets, not yours.”

This legal container will protect you in the case of divorce or if someone tries to sue you for your personal assets. When there’s nothing registered in your name, there’s nothing to take during a legal dispute.

3. Domestic Contract Before Entering a Serious Relationship

“A prenuptial or cohabitation agreement made before cohabiting or marriage establishes a clear line between what each person brought into the relationship and what was built together during it,” remarked Nussbaum. He noted that high-net-worth individuals don’t obtain prenuptial agreements because they don’t trust their partners, but because they know what the law automatically does when a relationship comes to an end without one. He stressed that if you don’t draw the line, then the law will do it for you, and your wealth won’t be protected.

He warned that in most jurisdictions, a spouse has not only a right to assets acquired during the relationship, but also to those acquired prior to it. In his experience, one could lose half of the assets they had worked on before marriage during a divorce.

How Can Regular People Copy This?

Nussbaum pointed out that many regular people will avoid a prenuptial agreement because they assume that it means you’re expecting your marriage to end. However, this mindset is the reason why everyday people skip it and end up exposed. He shared that regular people can obtain one at a fraction of the cost of a contested divorce, and that the protection it provides is the same as that which wealthy people have enjoyed for generations.

This article was provided by MoneyLion.com for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal or tax advice.

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