Chris Radford, chief executive officer of aap, the UK's biggest buyer of endowment policies, said some of its customers had decided to sell their underperforming endowment policies and start clearing their debt, rather than turning to further credit to see them through the economic downturn.
Many households relying on credit during the recession
The poll by Unbiased.co.uk found that saving levels have also dropped. During the second quarter of the year £19 billion was saved by Britons, but this declined to £13 billion during the third quarter.
With less money put to one side, people could find that large expenditures are less able to be covered and, as such, personal loans and credit cards could be relied upon to cover the cost.
Debt levels have not reduced in order to accommodate this decline in saving. They are now almost double what they were at the start of the year.
This could mean that many households will have to tackle climbing debt repayments in 2010.
Chief executive of Unbiased.co.uk Karen Barrett said: "After the dramatic retreat from savings in favour of paying off personal debt in the first half of 2008, consumers are now slipping back into old habits, by borrowing around a third of what they save."
She added that with "savings levels currently billions lower than they were back in 2006 and 2007, this is creating a serious barrier to a sustained economic recovery".
Selling endowment policies could help get households back into the black
Mr Radford, from aap, said some of its customers who wanted to get their household coffers out of the red had decided to sell their unwanted endowment policies so they could make headway into clearing debt.
He added that should aap make an offer to purchase an endowment policy, it will always pay more than the surrender value offered by the insurance company.
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