Endowment sell or keep for a rainy day..?

Mediaboy

I know there are a load of different arguments but I'm keen to pay off a personal loan at 6.2% and by cashing in both we could do that and leave ourselves with about £4K to invest plus £200 (the cost of loan repayments and the total of the two premiums for the policies) to invest in long term savings plan. We are now on a full capital and repayment mort fixed for 5 years at 4.19% so don't need to rely upon these policies to repay the mortgage.

1st policy is with Standard Life - A Unit Linked policy

Guaranteed sum assured - Doesn't have one as this type of policy doesn't apparently

Death Benefit is: 43.4K
Declared bonuses
Monthly premium: £75.18
Maturity date: July 2024
Maturity forecasts:
Low (4%) £28,100
Med (6%) £35.8K
High (8%) £45.6

Current value: £8.4K

2nd Policy - Pheonix (formerly Royal & SA)

Guaranteed sum assured: £4612
Death Benefit: £9025
Declared bonuses: £366
Monthly premium: £24.69
Maturity date: Aug 2017
Maturity forecasts:
3.75% Growth: £6K
4.5% £6.4K
5.25% £6.8K
Current value: £2.8K

Any advice would be much appreciated...?!

Thanks

EdInvestor

I wouldn't cash in a unit linked policy at the moment as the market is beginning to recover.Suggest you monitor its performance for a while and see if you can choose a more opportune time to surrender.

The Phoenix policy is a different matter, please post the surrender value for a view.

Mediaboy

The surrender value is £2.8K - have tried also to see if I can sell it but as its so small there are no interested buyers.

Thanks for your advice.

EdInvestor

Current and surrender values are usually not the same.

Mediaboy

Sorry assumed current value was the surrender value. The surrender value is £2.8K. If by current value you mean what have I paid into it then my premiums have totalled around £3.2K

EdInvestor

The current value (as appears on your statement) is the value of the policy if held to maturity.The surrender value is what they will pay if you cash in the policy now. It is usually lower, as there is normally a penalty for early surrender.

So which is this figure you are quoting? You can normally obtain the updated surrender value on the phone from the provider.

BTW are the projections up to date?

Mediaboy

It doesn't give a current value on the statement and I haven't received any recent projections.

The only figures I have are that:

Death benefit: £9025
Guaranteed sum assured: £4612
Bonus to date: £365.99
Monthly premium: £24.69
Maturity date: August 2017
Latest surrender value: £2803

The projections I quoted were a few years old.

Thanks again

EdInvestor

You'll need to call them up and get an up to date surrender value and set of projections before we can give you a view.