How can I find a company that will purchase my endowment?

Q I'm about to remortgage my house and will be taking out a repayment mortgage. Currently I have an endowment policy. It's been running for around 13 years and over that period l have paid in around ?25,000.

My current lender has offered me a lot less than that for cashing it in. I've heard that there are companies which purchase endowment policies but l have no idea who they are or how to go about finding them.

JP

A There is an Association of Policy Market Makers, which includes eight of the leading endowment policy companies. Its e-mail address is enquiries@appm.org and its telephone number is 0207 7393949.

For some reason it won't give you the names of its eight members, but if you submit details of your policy these will be circulated to the membership who then contact you with their offers.

Not all endowment policy companies are members of the Association. The financial services specialist weeklies like Financial Adviser and Money Marketing regularly include details of all the endowment policy companies, but if you can't get hold of them try the monthly Money Management magazine, which is available in book shops and newsagents.

Your policy sounds ideal for the second hand traded endowment policy markets (known as TEPs). But it depends on the "quality" of the insurance company as to the price you will be offered, although it should be well in excess of the surrender value. The first step is to obtain written confirmation of the surrender value.