Has anyone ever cashed in an Endowment policy early or looked at doing so?
Would appreciate any advice...or links to web sites.

Pete

Never dealt with them, but these guys deal in secondhand endowments;

http://www.foster-and-cranfield.co.uk/

I bought one from these people several years ago.

www.policyportfolio.co.uk/

Yes.

Under no circumstances surrender it to the Insurance caompany. They give you a bum rate having charged you admin fees for years and they are effectively buying out of their liability. They are cheeky ba5tards.

Trade it to a company who buy these things.

It works by them taking a security over the proceeds of the policy. They keep up the repayments and get the profit at the end, or the payout if you die.

It has nothing further to do with you and you MUST appreciate that. You cannot go whinging later that some of the money belongs to you.

Essentially you'll probably get a price equal or perhaps slightly better to what you have paid in plus approximately building society interest, but it will be more than what the insurance company will buy themselves out for. In fairness they will lose the use of your future premiums, but I still think they take the mick in my opinion. They have after all had use of your previous ones!

We used a company about 8/9 years ago I think called Policyplus, they have adverts on the telly and stuff now, so it must be profitable for them!!

Why not try flogging it on here ?, get details of the surrender value and quotes from some of the specialists and see if anyone is interested then take it from there.

Kevin.

The investment vehicle behind the endowment could (should?) influence your actions. If the policy is a With-Profits policy it is probably best to sell it to a 3rd party but if it is unit-linked then if you really need the cash you should be able to cash it in without huge penalty - you will just get the value of the units minus a bit of administration charge (only if you really need the cash mind as the markets that the units have been bought in are probably not too good at the moment). For example the market has gone down over the last 12 months so your UL investment will probably have too.

People should be too cynical about these investments, they are long term and by stopping them early you are effectively breaking a contract and will suffer penalty for doing so but if you really need the cash ..........

If the policy is a +P endowment surrendering it should be your last option.

Hope this helps.

Pete, try this FAQ: http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=5803872

Just to back up what some of the others have already said, don't just cash it in. When I worked in a bank we were told to advise customers not to cash in their endowments if they'd had them less than 10 years! :eek: That was because they're such a poor investment vehicle, designed to put the money in the seller's pocket first before the investment growth starts. (allegedly!!)

Have a look at this link too, for info on selling/auctioning your policy: http://www.fool.co.uk/personalfinanc...9/cp990225.htm

Hope this helps,
Steve

Thanks for the replies folks, the policy belongs to the wife. Many years ago we took out the policy ( including life/critical illness cover) when I had decided to go self employed and our first child arrived - if the missus couldn't work and I had to stop work we would have been up the proverbial without a paddle. It was security for us.

Things are a bit better now and we don't really need the insurance bit and the endowment bit is pretty crap as a savings policy - gambling would be more profitable. Nevertheless there is 10 years worth of savings to be redeemed.

I'll follow up the leads and see where I get to. If anyone else has experience please let me know. It's not everyday I do this sort of thing!!
Ta again
Pete