Why has my std life endwmt surrender value dropped like a stone since Mid March ???

David_c_4

Hi , newbie here , hope someone can help ,

After many years filing away my annual update letters kind of confused and ostrich like, i have now started to jen up on all things money and insurance wise and hope to become more ruthless with my control on the finances. I have shut my eyes to this far too long and probably thrown money down the drain !!!

Have decided to either surrender or sell my Standard life wp endowment :

Basic details - as at 20/3/09
start date 1991
Matures 2013

Basic sum assured £11.9k
monthly payment £52 approx (£2.9k total future paymts)
Total bonus applied (projected ) £5.1k
Guaranteed value at maturity £17.1k
Policy no - haha , i'm not totally thick.
Surrender value today 20/3/09 £12299

How annoyed am i , i contacted five or six apmm tep members last week with a view to selling the policy ( no joy ) and at that time the surrender value was £13.3k !!! I just lost a grand in a week ...:mad: ouchh. Why ???

Has any one with much superior knowledge to mine got any useful advice pls??
How could the surrender value have dropped like that ???



Kind regards
David

Dan_1976

Like many others your investment has taken a hit by whats going on in todays markets.

I am not very good with endownments, but I am sure one of the IFA's will be by in a sec.

David_c_4

Hi Dan ,

Thanks , its alot to lose in a week !

david234

your lucky mines just dropped by £1300 and i am in the process of trying to sell it, ive got no chance now,as far as i know the reason why its dropped is because standard life has but on a 8% charge if you cash in your endowment to stop people taking there money out so were all snooked

opinions4u

David_c wrote: »

Hi Dan ,

Thanks , its alot to lose in a week !

But your guaranteed maturity value has not fallen, has it? It is guaranteed.

The only way they can maintain any sort of guarantee in a falling market is to pass those falls on to customers who back out prior to maturity.

For the record, I backed out of mine in October and got £15k against a similar premium/term to yours. It had dropped by £600 since my initial enquiry in August - I should have moved faster!

Ask them what guarantees there would be if you made the policy "paid up".

rosy

I know that in the last few days they have cut bonuses for those surrendering early. I've been checking mine daily as I was going to surrender it - only to find surrender value dropped drastically overnight because a final bonus payment of over 5% ( a four figure sum) suddenly changed to a penalty ( around - £50 ) if policy was surrendered. I assume there have been lots of requests to surrender WP policies, I'm staying put at the minute (as there is a guaranteed return) in the hope that bonus will be applied again ...eventually...

Dan_1976

People are having thousands wiped off of investments every day, then again they can go up again. Maybe wait a bit longer and see what happens.

dunstonh

February saw the markets drop significantly. The last two weeks have seen the markets go up again. There is always a slight lag on with profits plans.

Surrender penalties have also changed. More than the actual current value.

David_c_4

Hi ,

Thanks all , i think i will give SL a call , if it is down mainly to them applying a
surrender tax then i may aswell surrender . If it is the markets ( cant believe that would acct for a grand ? ) then maybe i will wait a short while .

Many thanks and kind regards , David :cool:

David_c_4

Hi Again,

Well SL say its purely down to market forces and not any surrender penalty.

Do i wish i had just surrendered it last week !!!

david

dunstonh

If it is the markets ( cant believe that would acct for a grand ? )

The FTSE dropped 23.65% from 6th Jan to 3rd March. Yours dropped by 7%. So, you got off lucky. Since 3rd March its gone up 9.11%.