Focus not on what they might or might not be doing, but on what the family as a whole needs to do to help, said Carolyn McClanahan , a certified financial planner and medical doctor in Jacksonville, Fla. And do it with empathy and a lack of judgment.

For instance, if a family member is already the point person on finances, he or she can say “I’m honored you put me in charge, and I’m concerned that I don’t have all the information I need. At some point in life, something is going to happen, and I want to make sure we’re ready,” she said. “It’s more concern about yourself doing a good job instead of making them sound like they’re doing a bad job.”

And, try asking questions — kindly — that get to the root of any resistance.

It can be helpful to point out that the anxieties are not just about whether money is being handled correctly, but also to ensure that the government is not going to get a bigger bite of any inheritance than necessary.

For example, the father of one of Dr. McClanahan’s clients had 60 stock certificates in a locked box, “which would have been a huge probate nightmare,” she said. She convinced him to move the stocks into a custodial brokerage account, so each stock would not have to be probated separately. They are also easier to keep track of that way and require far less paperwork.

He also was going to make his children the beneficiaries of his Individual Retirement Account and give money to charity, but, for tax purposes, it made much more sense to do it the other way around, she said. An heir would have to pay taxes on distributions from the retirement account, but the charity would not, while the cash would go to the children without any taxes to be paid.