Planner clients also reported stronger financial well-being and savings buffers
Working with a financial planner now correlates with a 13.3-point lift in household financial resilience, the widest gap the Financial Resilience Institute has recorded since it began tracking the measure.
According to the Institute's June 2026 report, Financial Planning: A Catalyst to Improved Financial Resilience and Financial Well-Being, produced with FP Canada, households working with a planner posted a mean financial health and resilience score of 62.5 as of February 2026, against 49.2 for those without one.
That places planner clients in the "Approaching Resilience" band and non-clients in "Financially Vulnerable."
The Institute said the gap widened from 11.5 Index points in February 2023, and t-test analysis confirmed the difference holds regardless of household income.
The advantage spanned every income bracket, the Institute reported.
Households earning under $49,999 scored 53.0 with a planner against 38.8 without one, and that delta widened from 9.7 points in 2023 to 14.2 points in 2026, a steeper gain than for higher earners.
Households earning $150,000 or more scored 70.9 against 63.9.
Planner clients scored higher on seven of the Index's nine indicators, per the report, with the biggest margins on liquid savings buffer (74.5 against 57.2), self-reported credit score (77.4 against 62.4) and confidence in meeting short-term savings goals (66.0 against 49.7).
Clients who had also created or updated a plan in the past 12 months scored 64.7, eight points above clients who had not, the Institute said, with 43 percent qualifying as "Financially Resilient" against 26 percent.
The Institute also found a well-being premium.
Households working with a planner reported a mean financial well-being score of 7.00 and an overall personal well-being score of 6.66, against 5.63 and 5.72 for non-clients, based on its open-source Financial Well-Being Index Model and Toolkit.
Uptake remains uneven by demographic.
As of February 2026, the Institute reported that 46.8 percent of Baby Boomers work with a planner, against 34.7 percent of Gen X, 24.4 percent of Millennials and 21.7 percent of Gen Z.
By income, 45.7 percent of households earning $150,000 or more use a planner, nearly double the 23.5 percent of those earning under $49,000.
The findings land against a flat national picture.
The Canada Mean Financial Health and Resilience Score stood at 53.34 as of February 2026, 0.47 points above a year earlier but 3.8 points below the pre-pandemic baseline, according to the Institute, with 74 percent of the population experiencing financial vulnerability on some level.
Market conditions sharpen the backdrop.
The report noted that volatile stock markets through 2025 and into 2026 have weighed on resilience, and that the share of Baby Boomers wanting to better understand their financial resilience rose from 54 percent to 64 percent over the year, which the Institute attributed to concerns among those with hard-earned savings and investments.
Citing Bloomberg analysis, the report pointed to tariff shocks, geopolitics and policy uncertainty driving repeated volatility spikes across asset classes.
The Institute collected the February 2026 data four days before the Middle East War began on February 28, and flagged potential for rising vulnerability ahead.
Citing an April 29 Globe and Mail piece by Jeremy Kronick, president and CEO of the CD Howe Institute, the report said supply disruptions, weak demand and slowing population growth supported the Bank of Canada's April rate hold, despite inflation rising to 2.4 percent in March from 1.8 percent in February.
Strain showed across the data.
The Institute reported that 53 percent of households live paycheque to paycheque, 80 percent say cost-of-living increases have outpaced income growth, and 34 percent carry a negative or zero savings rate.
Middle-income families with children under 18 earning $75,000 to $125,000 scored 48.3, almost 10 points below June 2021, with the "Financially Resilient" share falling from 30 percent to 13 percent.
Financial planning measurably improves Canadians' financial resilience at every income level, including low-income and underserved households, said Eloise Duncan, CEO and founder of the Financial Resilience Institute, pointing to the institute's research and Financial Health and Resilience Index.
Wider access to planning advice would spread those gains, she added.
It is "concerning" that Canadians at every income level face financial vulnerability, said Tashia Batstone, president and CEO of FP Canada.
The findings show planners help build resilience, she added, and point to expanding access to professional advice.
