Scottish Provident have recently been sending out the endowment policy performance letters to their policy holders, informing them about how their Scottish Provident endowment policies are doing, with regard to hitting target, or not.

A red letter means that there is a high probability of a shortfall, and many policy holders will have been tempted to think about surrendering their endowment policies as a result. Surrendering endowment policies is one way of getting at the cash locked in to the investment, but selling the policies is another, and potentially more lucrative alternative.

Neither route is perfect, as one of the consequences is the effective loss of the life assurance protection knitted in to the endowment policies, and although replacement is easy enough, it may not be as cheap.

Surrendering endowment policies can never be advised, neither can selling them, and professional advice should be sought. However, if a policy holder is determined to go down the route of surrendering endowment policies, then they should at least use the policy valuation form, to see if an endowment policy trader would be interested in buying the policy to add to his portfolio. More money can be earned this way than simply surrendering.

"Selling endowment policies is no more complicated than surrendering endowment policies"