Winterthur Life United lInked Endownment

sfarley72

Hi,

I have a Winterthur Endownment which i took out on my old property for £60k around 11 years ago.I recently stop premiums into this policy with a view to withdrawing the proceeds, which were around £16k (This was in April before the recent dip in the stock market/euro zone, it is now valued at around £15k).
I then decided that at the time the policy was giving me a reasonable return better than anything i would get my putting the same proceeds in a savings accounts so the view was to stop payments and leave the policy where it is, i.e paid up.
I have since received a letter from Winterthur offering me oppurtunity to make this policy paid up but they have given me 2 option.One which is to leave the assured amount at £60k, the second to reduce it to £1000.The projected returns on the latter are greater at maturity than if i leave it at £60k assured.
Therefore my question is if i am now making this endownment paid up and have a view to withdraw the funds in the next year to 18 months what would be the best option to take to optimise my returns during this period?I now have a seperate life assurance with my partner so the endowmnent is really just going to be used to pay for our wedding but i dont want to make it paid up for the wrong assured amount if it will risk this investment in the short term, albeit in the long term it looks the better option to reduce the paid up assured amount to £1000.
Should i just make it paid up for the same assured amount of £60k or will my gains over the next year, assuming the stock market bounces back be slightly greater if i make it paid up for the reduced assured amount of £1000.
Thanks

dunstonh

Therefore my question is if i am now making this endownment paid up and have a view to withdraw the funds in the next year to 18 months what would be the best option to take to optimise my returns during this period?

One option takes the cost of life assurance from the investment. The other option doesnt. So, its pretty easy to see which option is best. That is unless you die in that period!

sfarley72

Thanks very much.It looks straightforward on the letter but i just wanted to ensure that if i did opt for the lower assured amount i wouldnt risk reducing the current value of the policy and infact by selecting the lesser assured amount i would be improving its value a little in the short term thus clawing back a little which has been lost off the policy in the last 6 weeks.
Again Thanks