When pop icon Prince died earlier this year, he left no verified direct descendants, no spouse and no heir behind. He didn’t even have a will.

As a result, the disposition of his estimated $300 million estate will be left in the hands of judges and attorneys, likely placing his creditors and relatives in a prolonged conflict over the fortune.

“Prince isn’t someone that most of us can relate to, but he was so intentional with his art and the way he lived his life that the plan that is being made for his estate in a very ad-hoc manner is probably not what he would have envisioned,” says Karla Valas, managing director of the Complex Asset Group of Fidelity Charitable. “Advisors can definitely leverage this story.”

While most advisors probably don’t count a singular talent and success like Prince among their clients, there are anecdotal reports of an increase in high-net-worth, single and childless investors—those with more than $5 million in assets—seeking advice.

Prince lacked a formal legacy plan, says Carol Kroch, managing director of wealth and philanthropic planning at Wilmington Trust, and she finds many younger, ultra-wealthy clients in similar situations.

“It goes beyond being childless and spouseless,” Kroch says. “Under a certain age, people don’t tend to plan for a legacy because they can’t imagine that they are eventually going to die. Older people in retirement tend to think more about their power-of-attorney or their will, but many people under 60 have never had anyone talk to them about these issues.”

Steve Martin, a senior managing advisor at Springfield, Mo.-based BKD Wealth Advisors, says he has recently assisted a client in such a situation.

“He was going to end up with a lot of money left over at the end of his life, so the real question was what does he do with it,” Martin says. “At a certain point, accumulation isn’t the goal anymore. Those funds have to fulfill some other need, and financial planning helps bring the focus back to that.”

The client in question accumulated his millions through a modest lifestyle—which continues in retirement—and steady accumulation through a side business. Today, the fortune continues to grow faster than the client’s consumption needs.

Yet the client, a male in his 60s, has no children or family members to inherit the wealth.

“He had never given any thought to what would happen to his money, but we found that he has an opportunity to make a difference, a real difference, in whatever issues he feels are important,” Martin says. “He became excited when we sat him down to show our reasoning using the outcome of a Monte Carlo analysis. The obvious answer to what to do with the money was charitable gifting. He had already started to do that, but modestly, so we told him that he needed to start thinking bigger.”

Martin says that for clients accustomed to living modestly, advisors shouldn’t expect them to suddenly start spending lavishly in retirement.

“Money habits are hardwired at a young age and don’t change for most people regardless of their account balance,” Martin says.

Since a sizable portion of the portfolio was not tax deferred, Martin says his client began by gifting appreciated assets. “That was a win-win situation that he really liked.”

Martin and his client established trusts to fund retirement and long-term care needs, and had already identified the children of a few close friends that would become beneficiaries of his estate.

“Those were going to be some very lucky kids—and they still will be, but he’s now going to include some non-profit organizations in that equation,” Martin says.

Since Monte Carlo simulations have become good predictors of retirement success, Martin says that planners should be able to introduce additional possibilities for giving around estate planning.

“It’s even more powerful if you can introduce them to the possibility of sharing gifts while they’re still alive,” Martin says.

Yet Valas cites research that shows only 14 percent of advisors currently offer advice around philanthropy.

Giving should start with a client’s passion—clues can be found in the way the wealthy start or run their own businesses.

Martin asks his clients point-blank what they want to do with their wealth—even the ones not charitably inclined.

“You can’t make people philanthropic overnight,” Valas says. “They can be encouraged to be philanthropic, though, by recommending that they dip their toes in the waters with low-cost vehicles like donor-advised funds.”

But electing to give away most of one’s wealth late in life isn’t always because of a proclivity for generosity, says Charles Lowenhaupt, chairman of Lowenhaupt Advisors im St. Louis.

“Many people without direct heirs or children make substantial gifts to charity as a way to take the money out of the hands of other relatives like nephews and nieces,” Lowenhaupt says. “Advisors can make that a more satisfying engagement by finding charitable causes important to the client.”

Martin says that his current crop of retirement clients, mostly born in the 1940s and early 1950s, have children they can designate as heirs—but that he is also seeing more wealthy, childless and single clients.

The risk of not planning is too great not to approach single, high-net-worth clients with the topic, Martin says.

The Prince estate serves as the best example of how those types of situations end up.

“If there are people or causes that they care about but they fail to plan, they’re setting their families up for disasters after they’re gone,” Martin says. “These lead to the most horrific estate planning mistakes.”