The good news is that the endowment policy traders, at the time of writing this, are actively looking for people who are selling Standard Life endowments to include in their investment portfolios. While there is no guarantee that this situation will continue indefinitely, Standard Life endowments are regarded as good, strong investments that are attractive to the institutional investor especially those located in Germany, where there is a very healthy market for trading in endowments due to their tax laws.

Standard Life is one of the largest life assurance companies in the market. Vast amounts of Standard Life endowment policies were sold over the years as investment vehicles for paying off endowment based mortgages. However, with the demise of the popularity of endowment policies in general, mortgages that were endowment based are increasingly being changed to repayment mortgages, and the homeowners are either keeping the endowment polices as personal savings plans or are surrendering the policies back to Standard Life.

However, it is possible that selling the endowment policies instead could net more money that simply surrendering the endowment policies and accepting the surrender value offered by Standard Life. Surrendering endowment policies is very much a last resort, as they are meant to be long term investment products which have valuable life assurance cover attached to them. Although replacement life cover can be easily obtained (providing the lives to be assured are still fit and healthy!) simply surrendering the endowment policies back to the issuing life office might be regretted if later on the policy holder realises the extra cash they could have got by selling the policies instead to second hand endowment policy traders.

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