What is a Life Insurance Assignment?

The basic purpose of a life insurance policy is to create a financial windfall at the time of death. All sorts of life insurance products are available from various insurance companies to provide families with financial planning options. A life insurance assignment is a document that allows a beneficiary to transfer the ownership rights of a policy to a third party such as a funeral home or funeral assignment funding company. Transferring to that third party rights of ownership under a policy can be limited to certain costs related to burial and funeral services, or for amounts up to the value of the benefits to be paid out. The two kinds of life insurance assignments are conditional and absolute.

A conditional assignment, although you would transfer life insurance policy’s ownership rights to another party, the assignment sets forth that if a certain specified event occurs, the assignment can be suspended or revoked in whole or in part. Such event can not be something that the beneficiary or owner can cause to happen.

Assigning a life insurance policy to a Funeral Home and then a simultaneous re-assignment to a funeral funding company is very common in the event beneficiaries wish to fund or pay for funeral costs with these benefit proceeds. Assignment of an insurance policy is very useful to families who then have a known amount to spend, do not have to come up with funds out of pocket and importantly do not have to discuss between the deceased loved ones who is going to front the funds. Families also offload the pain of filling out all the required forms to the funeral director and assignment funding company. Likewise, funeral homes who are like any other small business must keep their cash flow working and oftentimes suffer from unpaid or delayed payments receive their money upfront from the funeral funding company through the assignment of insurance proceed. Thousands of families choose to utilize insurance assignments to expedite their receipt of funds and to pay for funeral costs each month. An estimated 1.6 million families use a life insurance assignment each year.

Here is some typical language you would find in a life insurance assignment document your funeral home director would utilize. Assignment-and-Reassignment-Form-.pdf

I/WE, THE undersigned beneficiary(ies) and/or claimant(s) legally entitled to the benefits from the above described insurance policy(ies) or employer/union death benefit certificate(s), do hereby irrevocably assign, set over, convey, and transfer unto _______________________(hereafter The “Funeral Home”) c/o Trinity Funeral Funding, LLC, PO Box 31, Norwood, NJ 07648-1347 (hereafter “TRINITY”) its successors and assigns, the sum of ($______.____)Dollars to be paid from the benefits of the above described policy(ies) or certificate(s). The consideration for this assignment is the value received from the Funeral Home for the funeral services rendered and/or any (additional) monies advanced to me/us for the above named decedent. I/We hereby authorize and empower the above named insurance company or employer/union to make payment of the sum specified herein, and any un-earned and returned premiums, and any Post-Mortem Claim Interest calculated from date of death thru date of claim payment to TRINITY. I/We hereby guarantees the validity and sufficiency of the foregoing irrevocable assignment to the Funeral Home /Cemetery and TRINITY, and I/we further guarantees to warrant title to the policy(s) and defend TRINITY against any claims. I/We hereby irrevocably authorizes said Insurance Company and/or Employer to give Funeral Home/Cemetery and TRINITY all information that it may require regarding said policy(s). I/We hereby appoints TRINITY as their Attorney-infact and to act on their behalf with regard to the verification of, collection of, settlement of, and receipt of proceeds of said policy(s) or certificate(s), including but not limited to, giving TRINITY the right to endorse checks and all documents including claimant statement forms in my name.