endowment or isa

Welly66

Hello, my standard life endowment after fifteen years of paying in is only just breaking even, it is no longer needed to repay my mortgage and i have already recieved my mis-selling cheque ( thanks to this site, cheers.)
What i would like to know is would it make more sense to surrender my plan and put the money and my usual monthly payments into an isa or wait it out and hope things improve ?( i have been told that an endowment makes most of its money in the final years)
Thanks

EdInvestor

You pay 20% tax on gains in endowments whereas gains in ISAs are tax free, so in principle yes.

But there are some endowments which are worth keeping.Post some info about yours.

Provider
Guaranteed sum assured
Declared bonuses
Surrender value
Monthly premium
Maturity date
Maturity forecasts

Welly66

Hi Edinvestor,
My plan is with Standard Life, i am not aware of any guarranteed sum assurred or any declared bonuses. the plan is currently worth £6750 ( i presume the actual surreder value would be less than this)
My monthly premium is £36.66 and it matures in 2018.
The maturity fore casts are £13,000 low , £15,000 intermediate and £18,000 high.
The plan was originally supposed to cover a £26,600 mortgage and i have been paying in for fifteen years.
Thanks for your help, Steven

EdInvestor

Please post the actual surrender value ( ring up and ask).

dunstonh

You pay 20% tax on gains in endowments whereas gains in ISAs are tax free, so in principle yes.

Thats not strictly true. A lot of the gains could come from income and they have the same tax treatment as unit trust equity funds in an ISA. Also, in a falling market, life funds tend to perform better than the equivalent unit trust fund as the money put aside to pay the tax isnt required and is fed back into the unit price (reverse is true in a rising market).