How to sell an Endowment policy ?

[AnthonyC]

Hi

I currently have an Endowment policy from a previous house that is going nowhere - it is worth about what I have paid in.

I could do with the money at the moment, could anybody advise me of the best way to sell it ?

Thanks

AC

[Simpo Two]

Google 'Sell Endowment Policy'. I pondered this last year and got the best price from a three-letter company beginning with A. ALM, AMS, something like that.

Then I decided that if they were prepared to give me £x for it, then it was actually worth £x + y, and decided to keep it going.

[trimbo]

Simpo Two said:

Google 'Sell Endowment Policy'. I pondered this last year and got the best price from a three-letter company beginning with A. ALM, AMS, something like that.

Then I decided that if they were prepared to give me £x for it, then it was actually worth £x + y, and decided to keep it going.

Out of interest, what percentage of its worth did they offer you?

Edited by trimbo on Monday 25th August 18:40

[arebrec]

Hey Anthony

I asked a similar question a few weeks ago, so some of the replies may help you.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...


my advise, as I am in the middle of selling mine at the mo, is to get as many quotes as possible and then just keep informing them of the highest and see if they can beat it.
You are going to need a bit of patience though, they often take 24hrs or more to return a quote and then you have to ring them all again with the new offer.

I'm down to 2 companies now trying to outbid each other.

AAP and surrenda-link have made the best offers, fastteps were very helpful too

good luck

[audidoody]

Take great care when selling your endowment through a third party.

Some places will give you a high quote but they won't have a buyer lined up. What they will do is parcel it up with a load of others they have made offers on and then go and look for a buyer for the lot. You could be waiting up to six weeks for them to find a buyer.

This happened to me when I was offloading some old Standard Life endowments. Got good quotes but then was dicked around so much that after six weeks I went back to Standard Life and surrendered them directly.

[Pappa Lurve]

Aerbrec is broadly correct and add to that there are a few other things worth knowing;

Ask the company for a firm completion date
Find out if they are regulated by the FSA (they should be - if not, don't touch them)
Generally speaking, selling a policy is not the best way to maximise the value even when one takes into acount the lower than expected returns on some policies. Generally, it is better to hold it until maturity
Of course the policy is worth more than the traders give you for it, thats why they are traders! However, as the liklihood is that they will offer you more thann surrender it is the best deal that will be on offer for most people.

Generally speaking, a policy needs to be a with profits policy and over 7 years old, assuming a 25 year term to be of interest to traders, although that may have changed

HTH

[Simpo Two]

trimbo said:

Out of interest, what percentage of its worth did they offer you?

Can't remember exactly, maybe 5-6% higher than the SV (surrender value). AAP was the one, and they followed it up - seemed very professional.

[cosmos.]

arebrec said:

surrenda-link

+1.

(Plus they're members of APMM.)

[snowy]

Why sell?

Complain that you were mis sold the policy, if that's the case.
It would then yield a compemsation value as well, plus the surrender value and interest.

[Simpo Two]

I think the mis-selling window is now pretty much closed, and we have no evidnce that it was mis-sold. The OP simply wants the money for something else. As well as personal circumstances, you also have to look at the policy provider - some policies are worth more because they're with better providers.

But whatever, the truism remains - if a middle-man offers you £10 for something, it's because they know it's worth £12, which implies it's best to hang on in the long term and get the extra yourself.

[AnthonyC]

Thanks for the input, it's certainly given me some things to consider.

I don't think I was mis-sold the policy, just at the moment I could use the money for better things.

Cheers

Anthony

[cjs]

Another thing to consider is making the policy "Paid Up". I did this with my endowment a few years back. The policy is still in place and will payout at maturity however I no longer make any more payments each month. It worked out better for me and the payments I was making I put towards paying off the mortgage earlier.