If you have an endowment mortgage and are worried – don't make any hasty decisions. Check the facts first. Never just cash in an investment or savings plan or stop paying in without taking professional advice – you could lose out financially.

With–profit endowment policies are long–term investment products. They are designed to be held through to maturity. If, for whatever reason, you're thinking of surrendering or cashing in your policy, make sure your endowment company tells you about ALL the options – these include the option of trading the policy in as well as surrendering it, if it has been running for at least five years.

If you surrender your policy, the life office pays you a surrender value for it. If you trade it in, you sell the policy to a third party (usually via a traded endowment company, sometimes called a market maker). The new owner takes over the policy and pays the premiums but the assurance remains on the life of the original policyholder (you). So when it matures (or if you die before that), the new owner gets the money. Depending on how long the policy has been running, you may get more money trading it in rather than surrendering it.

If you're thinking of surrendering or trading in your with–profits endowment policy because you think you were given bad advice to buy it in the first place, you should complain to the firm which sold you the policy. Do this before you even think about giving it up – you may be due compensation if you have lost out financially. See our Endowment mortgage complaints printed guide. You can download it from Publications, where you can also order it online.

For more information about traded endowment policies and the second–hand market for them, contact the Association of Policy Market Makers (APMM), which represents some of the firms that buy endowments.