adding UK friendly society insurance policy

[Mike or Penny Novack]

>I want to add the value of an insurance policy, arranged through UK Friendly Society so tax except which is invested in one of the Societies funds
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>I'm not familiar with accountancy terms and this is probably why I can't find understandable info in the help. Is there other documentation which might be might useful to me
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>what to do?
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>Is this is a savings asset and do I need to open new account under savings?
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>How is the value of the fund entered, own a number of units, each with a value and the overall value is 
>number of units multiplied by value of unit. In future the value of unit and the number of units can vary?
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>Many thanks
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>Ted Aston
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Ted,
    I don't know how British accounting principles/laws treat 
"insurance". Doesn't your carrier provide you with annual policy valuations?

    Here this would normally be dealt with OFF the books in computing 
your net worth. The point is that so much of the value of an insurance 
contract is CONDITIONAL on events. There are forms of contracts (example 
"variable life", "universal life", etc.) which ARE more like ordinary 
investment funds but even these tend to have insurance components which 
are conditional in nature.

     Keep in mind that in computing "net personal worth" there tend to 
be a number of components OFF the books. In other words, you combine 
your net worth from "on the books" items (ordinary investments, etc.) 
with these OTHER items in a spreadsheet if you want to see your TOTAL 
net worth. The point is, the house you live in is an asset of that sort 
-- you might have to declare capital gains if sold at a profit BUT would 
not get to declare losses on it. Similarly a "hobby" enterprise might in 
fact have a potentially large cash value.

Michael D Novack, FLMI  (which title you might or might not recognize -- 
its "insurance")