endowment policies (SHEPs) are traditional with-profits endowments that have been sold to a new owner part way through their term. The TEP market enables buyers (investors) to buy unwanted endowment policies for more than the surrender value offered by the insurance company. Investors will pay more than the surrender value because the policy has greater value if it is kept in force than if it is terminated early. When a policy is sold, all beneficial rights on the policy are transferred to the new owner. The new owner takes on responsibility for future premium payments and collects the maturity value when the policy matures or the death benefit when the original life assured dies. Policyholders who sell their policies, no longer benefit from the life cover and should consider whether to take out alternative cover. The TEP market deals exclusively with Traditional With Profits policies. The easiest way of determining whether an endowment policy is in this category is to check to see whether it mentions units, indicating it is a Unitised With Profits or Unit Linked policy, if bonuses are in sterling and there is no mention of units then it is probably a traditional With Profits. The other types of policies - “Unit Linked” and “Unitised With Profits” have a performance factor which is dependent directly on current investment market conditions. These are not tradable as the guarantees on the policy are much lower and there is no gap between the surrender value and the market value. Problems with endowment mortgages The underlying premise with endowment policies being used to repay a mortgage, is that the premiums plus growth of the investment will be adequate to repay the loan when it falls due. Toward the end of the 1980s when endowment mortgage selling was at its peak, the anticipated growth rate for endowments policies was high (7-12% per annum). By the middle of the 1990s the change in the economy toward lower inflation made the assumptions of a few years ago look optimistic. Significantly, endowment mortgages continued to grow in the 1980s even after life assurance premium relief had been abolished in 1984. Moreover, their share of the mortgage market held up in the 1990s despite the fact that the Treasury began to steadily reduce MIRAS (mortgage interest relief at source), which also worked in favour of interest-only mortgages, and despite a prolonged period of relatively low inflation