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An endowment taken out in 1970 and due to mature and pay off a 25 year mortgage would probably be for £5000-£10,000 (the then price of a decent semi), and will produce much more than that.
During it's investment period it started at the end of the good years of the 1960's and the investor would have just about covered the initial charges when the Arabs hiked the price of oil sending inflation up, shares into a spin and the economy into a mess. The three day week and all that.
It then went through the stagflation of the 1970's straight into the teeth of the 79-81 recession. After a few good years it got hit by the crash in October 87, 1990 , ( a year in which all funds slid quietly down into the ditch as a new recession bit), the Gulf War and the ERM fiasco.
Then followed a huge bull market, albeit one that favoured "new economy" over "old economy" companies, and into what may be (May 2000) the start of a melt down, esp in "newe economy" stocks.
In spite of all of which the owner will be greatly pleased, no matter which company looked after it, when he finds that the house is paid for and the surplus will buy a car.
Its quite amazing really, when you think that during the whole period of investment it was never a safe time to invest :-)
So why the success? Mainly because a lot of the investment occurred in the middle of the bad times, times when shares were cheap because everyone was worried. If the real value of the contract had been known during the term it would have been going up and down like a yo-yo, and only over the long term would the gains become clear. In fact it might well have been worth more a year ago than it is now, but such minor details are not the point, the point is the value of long term investment.