A traded endowment policy (TEP) is an endowment policy that the original policyholder has sold by absolute assignment of all future benefits. "Traded endowment policy" is merely a fancy way of saying second-hand endowment policy. For a variety of reasons, many policyholders cash in their policies early.

Why would I sell my policy rather than surrender it? You may have decided, for whatever reason, that your endowment policy is no longer relevant to your financial circumstances. It follows logically that you will, therefore, want to get as big a return from your investment into the endowment policy as you possibly can.

First you should approach us so that we can find out how much the policy will be worth if you surrender it. This "surrender value" may or may not be more than you have actually paid in to the policy.

There may be a substantial difference between a quoted surrender value and a policy's underlying worth if held to maturity. Through the TEP market, policyholders may be able to sell 'unwanted' policies to secure a higher value and buyers with the initial capital to invest the income to meet future regular premium commitments may buy them mid-term with entitlement to all the potential future benefits.

Levels and bases of, and reliefs from, taxation are subject to change.