Auctioning endowment policies is actually quite a common thing to do and those who do it have various reasons for doing so. The most common reason however is that someone may need money as quickly as possible. This may be due to a divorce, re - mortgaging or they may be moving abroad and need to sell the policy before they go.

A lot of people assume that by auctioning endowment policies you are not going to get as much money as you would if you either kept it or sold it in a more traditional way. However, this is not the case because by selling your policy through an auction you are guaranteed to receive more than the surrender value offered by your endowment policy provider because you can set a reserve.

The major advantage of this is the fact that you know exactly how much money you want or need to cover the costs you are trying to meet. The result of this is that if your policy sells then you can be assured that you got enough money for it to cover whatever you need the money for.

Another good thing about selling endowment policies at auction is that you don't have to sell the policy if the highest bid is below the surrender value or whatever you set as a reserve price. You don't have to commit yourself to anything and therefore if you are not happy with the bids that you receive for your policy you don't have to sell it.

Auctions of endowment policies are usually arranged through a specialist auctioneer. Here private individuals or companies can bid for your policy if they think that it will make a good investment. The good thing about this is you know the people at the auction are going to be interested in what you're selling and therefore someone is more likely to sell your policy. If you went to an auction that isn't specialised then you run the risk of there not being a single person there who has even the slightest interest in endowment policies.

Selling endowment policies at auction is a fairly straightforward process. It is probably one of the easier ways of selling policies which is good for those who don't know a lot about them. If you need any help or advice regarding the topic then you can either speak to a financial adviser, the company you bought your policy from or someone at the auction.