Should I cash in my endowment?

[chai18]

I am now balancing my books each month but have a very large credit card bill which doesn't want to disappear.
The endowment policy is 9 years old and would cover nearly all the credit card balance. Should I just cash it in and be debt free or will I regret it. It will mean changing my mortgage next year from 75% repayment & 25% interest only to 100% repayment.

I think you need to take detailed advice. And calculate how much yu will have paid into your endowment up until now against how much you would get for it if you cash it in. Most endowments pay off because of the final bonus - which you don't get oif you cash in early. And also judge this against the amount you are paying in interest on credit cards each month. And is your endowment going to cover your morgage, anyway? Have you had a green or amber letter?

Sorry - that hasn't helped at all, has it!!??

I agree you should take some professional advice.

Just in case you didn't know about this option, you can sell the endowment (there are a number of companies who buy them) and they often pay more than you would get if you just cash it in...you could always see what you'd be offered for each option!

HTH!

Are you sure that you know its real value . The annual statement you get is based upon long term investment of your contributions including bonusses , so not necessarily what it would realise now. You may not even get back all that you have put in yet.

Hi - get advice! From an independant financial advisor who is either salaried or gets commission based on how products perform over whole term (this way they have a vested interest in ensuring the product performs and not merely what pays the most commission and ergo more likely to give you an independant opinion).

Other things to consider; your endowment will more than likely have life and/or critical illness attached, although these can be re-quoted, if you've had the policy that long they may be more expensive or be not as good.

Also, its it a with profits fund? Because these may have a bonus at maturity that has in the past matched the annual performance of the policy.

Lastly, although things are tight now is it absolute rock bottom? Do you have anything else that you could use as emergency fund?

Get good quality advice and if you decide to dispse of it - SELL IT ON, you'll get more than just cashing it in!

Hope this helps!

Good point about life insurance. We have changed our mortgage to repayment - but have kept our endowments going because we have no life insurance. At least the endowments would pay off the full amount if we were 'done in'.

We kept our endowment on after switching to full repayment as can't get crit illness now, too old/fat/sickly - never did get a response. Must be a big risk

Kept ours on as a savings plan