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Original poster

Endowment policy surrender?

15 replies

geordieminx · 08/03/2009 20:29

Ok I know its dull... and I know that you cant give me exact figures, but....

I have an endowment policy that I have paid £65 a month into for the past 10 years - to run for 25 years. I no longer have the mortgage related to it, we have have a repayment one.

Q is - any ideas how much it would be worth shoul we cash it in now? We dont need the money but it would be handy IYKWIM, especially if it isnt going to be worth much more should we continue paying into it?

Has all this credit crunch stuff affected the value?

Any help would be appreciated.

OP posts:
fishie · 08/03/2009 20:36

i've got one which is about 20yo now, £38.50 a month for half my life. oh horrors.

is the policy holder sending you red notices saying it won't pay out what it was projected to?

PestoMonster · 08/03/2009 20:42

You need to ring your insurance company and ask for a surrender value quote. They will send you one straightaway. Easy Peasy.

OatcakeCravings · 08/03/2009 20:43

Well phone or write to the company you have it with and find out - that's the only way you'll get an answer.

Original poster
geordieminx · 08/03/2009 20:43

Cant seem to find one from after 2007, which was worth £4.5k at the time, I think once you have had it 10 years it is supposed to go up in value

Just trying to work out whether its worth paying into for another 15 years? Or cashing in and spending shoes and holidays saving

OP posts:
Original poster
geordieminx · 08/03/2009 20:45

Is there much of a difference between selling it and surrendering it?

I know phoning them is going to give us the answer, but I'm just trying to work out current values/whether its worth paying another £12k in over the next 15 years then to be given 50p at the end

OP posts:
PestoMonster · 08/03/2009 21:00

You could ask for an estimated maturity value quotation at the same time. It won't be accurate of course (because the insurance company can't foretell how the market is going to go), but it might help a little bit?

Original poster
geordieminx · 08/03/2009 21:05

Thanks Pesto.

Just trying to get my head around it IFKWIM?

While its nice to have a wee nest egg, I cant help thinking is it really worth paying into for another 15years - it was taken out for £38k, which will probably wont even buy a car in 15 years...

OP posts:
trixymalixy · 08/03/2009 21:15

Hi Geordie,

It's prob the worst time to surrender it atm when the markets are low.

You will probably get more by selling it than surrendering it.

I would hang on to it until the markets recover.

ChesterTown · 08/03/2009 21:22

What is the difference between selling and surrendering btw

Original poster
geordieminx · 08/03/2009 21:37

I have no idea really - I think if you surrender it then you give it back to the company from which you bought it in the first place. You can sell it to a 3rd party, although obviuosly they are only buying it with the aim to make a profit.

Thanks Trixy - I thought as much - blardy credit crunch/government/bankers. The question is - when will the market recover

OP posts:
nkf · 08/03/2009 21:50

I went through all this. You can get a quote for the surrencer value from them. Then you have to work out what you might get if you paid that monthly amount into some other source. It usually includes life insurance as well so bear that in mind.

ChesterTown · 08/03/2009 21:57

Thanks nfk and geordie. We are in the same position - policy likely to mature to cover only about 50% of the original amount. We luckily now have a repayment mortgage now, so don't have to worry about the shortfall.
We are worried about paying in more than we will get out though. We have had ours 13 years, not sure if that is a good or bad thing when it comes to selling/surrendering...

trixymalixy · 08/03/2009 22:13

If you surrender then the company you took the policy out with will calculate the value of your investment and probably apply a penalty for surrendering early.

If you sell it, there are companies that basically take over your policy and will calculate how much it is worth to them and give you that minus a cut for profit for them.

Usually you are better off selling it on.

ha, if i knew when the markets were going to recover i would be rich beyond my wildest dreams!!

SobranieCocktail · 09/03/2009 08:29

Funnily enough I;ve just been investgating the same thing. Ditto what everyone else has said about phoning the company to get figures - it's really straightforward.

I know all policies are totally different, but here are the approx figures for my policy (which may or may not be helpful!).

I've had the policy for about 12 years, and have been paying in about £90 a month. The maturity value was meant to be about £34000 but is now predicted to have a shortfall of a couple of grand (they give you three estimated maturity values depending on growth of 4, 6 or 8%). My current surrender value is about £12000, which indicates that it hasn't suffered too badly in the credit crunch as it was worth about £11000 last year.

I'm looking into selling it, rather than surrendering it, but AAP have said that their members are not interested. My endowment company has said that they will pass my details on to some other companies who might be interested, so I'm waiting to hear back from them.

By the way, is there any likelihood that you were missold your endowment policy? It;s worth looking into this as I received about £5000 a few years ago as compensation for being missold my policy.

justchilli · 17/03/2009 20:46

One of the things we were advised to consider was the life insurance it offers.

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