Cashing In Endowment

honkey

I have had my endowment now for 15 years, with 10 years left to pay. It is with Countrywide Assured and not on target, my question is should I cash it in now and invest the money somewhere else (if so where?) or continue paying in £140 per month for something which is not performing very well.:eek:

chuckles1066

honkey wrote:

I have had my endowment now for 15 years, with 10 years left to pay. It is with Countrywide Assured and not on target, my question is should I cash it in now and invest the money somewhere else (if so where?) or continue paying in £140 per month for something which is not performing very well.:eek:

http://www.sellyourendowment.com/

http://www.tepexchange.com/

are two places to try to see what the policy is worth.

wymondham

we were in the same position. Try the above links - if they offer to buy then it could be a good one and worth holding on to, if like us nobody wanted it then you know you need to cash in!

dunstonh

honkey wrote:

I have had my endowment now for 15 years, with 10 years left to pay. It is with Countrywide Assured and not on target, my question is should I cash it in now and invest the money somewhere else (if so where?) or continue paying in £140 per month for something which is not performing very well.:eek:

How do you know its not performing well?

Countrywide issed a number of unit linked plans which have access to some pretty good funds. If you are in those then you should be doing fine. If you are relying only on a projection letter then that is not a reliable source of information by itself. These are prone to understate the real position of endowments (and overstate in the really poor examples).

mich_city

Hi, I'm in the same position.. have changed my mortgage over to a full repayment one so was looking to sell/surrender my endowment with the Prudential (formally Scot. Amicable)

I have just rang APMM as I didn't understand something on their online application form, they said my endowment is a combined one (with profits + unit linked) and couldn't do anything for me.. Will this be the same with all companies who buy them?

Thanks

marmites_2

hi, my endowment has 9 1/2 yrs to go, and is with royal london, should i sell or surrender, to pay off my new mortgage, or carry on paying into it as an investment? It costs me £183 per month.

Bazzaboy7_2

Hi there,
I just cashed in my Countrywide endowment policy after converting my mortgage to full repayment - It's quite surprising how little difference it has made to the monthly payments - worth checking out with your mortgage company.

You may get a good cash in value (if it's unit linked), you may be able to sell or auction (via someone like Foster and Cranfield) for much more than cash-in value (if it's not unit linked), with a wedge of cash in your hand to pay off the interest only element of your mortgage, no more £140 per month to pay and a minimal increase in your Mortgage monthly repayments.

Win / Win = smiles all round.
Good luck ...... Baz

dunstonh

If you have a Pru/Scot Am endowment you should definitely wait until the bonus announcement coming up before selling/surrendering.

Pru have an excellent record on endowment with 100% success rate with average surplus of £3300 on 2006 maturities (up from 2005) and Scot Am 96% success rate (up on 2005 which was 95%). They are desirable as they are almost dead certs to hit target and a lot of people are giving these away cheap without knowing how good they are.

Unit linked policies cannot be sold. On the up side, unit linked plans have been performing better, in general and are more likely to hit target. It is expected that most unit linked plans of 22 years or more will hit surplus.

Royal London is generally naff and you should be looking at alternative options unless there is some life cover issue keeping you there.

Endowment mortgages were generally cheaper than repayment mortgages. It was the most common reason people bought endowment mortgages. So, an increase in cost is expected. The better the endowment, the lower the increase would be when you swap over.

honkey

dunstonh wrote:

How do you know its not performing well?

Countrywide issed a number of unit linked plans which have access to some pretty good funds. If you are in those then you should be doing fine. If you are relying only on a projection letter then that is not a reliable source of information by itself. These are prone to understate the real position of endowments (and overstate in the really poor examples).

I have paid in £18000, and the policy is now worth £19000 and this is after 15 years with 10 years left to pay. They now want an increase in the payments to £170 per month for it to reach its target of £60000 does this seem feasible. Any advise would be welcomed - thanks

EdInvestor

Post some info on the policies for a view on what to do.

Guaranteed sum assured
Declared bonuses
Surrender value
Monthly premium
Maturity date
Maturity projections
Interest rate payable on mortgage