Who are the endowment buyers?

Endowment buyers are technically referred to as endowment policy traders and the endowment policies themselves as traded endowment policies, or TEPS for short. So if you see or here the phrase TEP buyer or TEP trader, you know you are on the right path.

Endowment buyers come in many shapes and sizes from individual investors looking to take a bit of a gamble on an "alternative investment" to multinational corporate investment managers who are looking to buy endowments to include in to their overall portfolio and spread the risk.

A typical example of this is the number of endowments that are sold to German endowment buyers. In 2006, for example, tens of thousands of endowment policies sold by British endowment policy holders were sold to institutional investors in Germany. The German endowment buyers bought half a billion pounds worth of unwanted UK endowments.

So one answer to "who are the endowment buyers" could be "The Germans".

What is it that endowment buyers are looking for in the endowment policies that they buy ? Strong life companies that have given good returns historically, endowment policies that have run for at least 5 years and have a surrender value of at least £1,500 although some endowment buyers like higher figures than this.

The most important thing that an endowment policy buyer is looking for when looking to buy endowments is that the endowment is a with profits endowment, which means that the profits accumulated so far are locked in. Unit linked policies do not offer this facility, and as a result are not bought by anyone, anywhere.

Endowment buyers have an established record of paying over the surrender value by several thousand pounds if the policy is suitable.

It is not just individual policies that the endowment buyers are interested in but complete portfolios as well, so if you have several endowment policies, and are not sure which ones to sell, it could be argued that it would be worth putting them all up for an endowment policy valuation, and see what offers come back - it costs nothing to do this - just use the facility on this web site.

 

Selling endowments

Selling endowments to one of only six endowment policy buyers that are  members of the Association of Policy Market Makers, can be achieved by using the "sell endowment" link at the top of the page, or by clicking here

The information on this web site is intended as "information only" and should not be taken as "advice".

If you are unsure about what to do, if anything, about your endowment policy, you should consider taking advice from an independent financial adviser who is regulated by the Financial Services Authority