Is your endowment worth selling? by Finance News Bulletin

Published: 20/02/07

News Companies & markets Investing Power collection Campaigns Mortgages & homesMortgage featuresInsurance customer advice Broadband & phones Retirement Saving & banking Credit & loans Small business Tax & wills communication boards Money blog Tools & calculators Ask an specialist Guides Compare & pay money forEndowment holders who think they are stuck with a dud policy could be in for a pleasant shock according to companies eager to purchase their policies

CASHING IN: Endowments may be worth more than holders believe due to physically powerful demand for second-hand with-profits policiesA ONE-MINUTE MAKEOVER If you only have one minute to learn how to sort your money, forget the rest and read this>> Our 8-step planThanks to a buoyant resale marketplace, with-profits policyholders whose mortgage endowment has unsuccessful to perform could sell their policy for substantially more than the surrender worthCompanies that deal in traded endowments – the word given to resold endowment policies – say they are seeing enormous demand for unwanted policies, mainly from German investment funds keen to pay money for what they see as a good long-term, low-risk investmentUnfortunately, not all donation policies are in demand, but those that are can reach up to 30% more than life companies present in surrender value

People interested in selling on their endowment should get in touch with firms that are members of the Association of Policy Market Makers, the trade body for FSA-regulated firms that contract in traded endowmentsTo give details more about traded endowments and why the value of policies has risen, Paul Harrison, of 1stPolicy, a associate of the APMM, has on paper the following guest article for This is Money:It's that time of the year again when all the insurance companies start to publish their new extra rates for the forthcoming year Endowment policyholders stay with baited breath to try to determine whether they should stick with their endowments and hope they recover or slash and run by cashing in their rule and realising the proceeds nowTRADED ENDOWMENTS: Paul Harrison of 1st Policy explains how traded endowments workNot so very long ago sticking with your donation policy would have been considered the safest alternative, but in the current type of weather policyholders view holding on until maturity as something of a gamble

Five years of falling bonus rates have in use their toll on even the most hard-bitten believersIn the past, donation policyholders have turned to the second-hand market as an exercise in injure limitation Put simply, policyholders attempt to sell their policy on the unlock market rather than surrendering it to the life place of work - a process often referred to as 'cashing in your endowment'In recent years this marketplace has been somewhat incomplete

Companies that traded in endowment policies accepted only a handful of life offices Now it seems they have opened their floodgates to nearly all the major existence offices and a number of the lesser onesThis resurgence may seem strange, since extra rates have been on a downward twisting for some time This formidable recovery is largely due to policy traders or marketplace makers, as they are known, unearthing an unlikely yet powerful catalyst

marketplace makers have managed to exploit a huge opportunity presented in Germany and neighbouring countries where enormous investment funds see second-hand endowments as an integral part of their finance composition Market makers in turn have set up exclusive agreements to provide these funds with wide selection of policies from different existence officesThe flip side of the coin is the re-birth of the traded endowment marketplace - a salvation to the many disillusioned policyholders in the UK Increased demand means senior prices are being paid for donation policies, which makes cashing in an donation more appealing

It should be pointed out that it is only with-profit policies that marketplace makers are interested in purchasing At present, there is no trading alternative for unit-linked policiesThe table below shows the companies whose policies a typical marketplace maker would be interested in purchasing The companies on the correct represent life offices most marketplace makers were previously unable to buy

Over the years, marketplace makers have modernised their application methods Nowadays the process is approved out online and takes between three to six weeks to completeSome of the life offices have also relaxed their rules concerning endowment policy sales For example, Standard Life, Prudential, Scottish Widows and Scottish Amicable no longer need sight of the unique policy document when an endowment is being soldIf you are bearing in mind surrendering or selling your first port of call should be a monetary adviser since market makers work on a strictly execution-only basis

all right, annual bonus rates have been falling steadily, but you do not sketch sufficient distinction between these and TERMINAL bonuses These too have been falling, but they can often make the difference between a policy value selling and a policy which is better kept Always enquire about terminal bonus rates from your with-profits endowment company before making that sell-or-not decision, chiefly if your policy is soon to mature© 2007 linked Northcliffe Digital Ltd Terms Privacy policy promote with us LoansCardsMortgagesInsuranceCompare the best deals around with This is cash

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