The process of transferring rights of a Life Insurance Policy is called Assignment. There are 2 types of Assignment:
- Absolute Assignment
- Conditional Assignment
Conditional Assignment means that the Transfer of Rights will happen from the Assignor to the Assignee subject to certain terms and conditions. If the conditions are fulfilled then only the Policy will get transferred from the Assignor to the Assignee. Or the policy will get transferred from the Assignor to the Assignee till certain conditions are fulfilled. Once the conditions are fulfilled, the policy automatically gets transferred back to the original owner, i.e. the Assignor.
Let’s take an example:
Rahul owns a Life Insurance Policy of Rs 5 lakhs. He needs to take a loan for his daughter’s school admission. He thought of doing so by taking a loan from the insurer itself or any bank against his Life Insurance Policy of Rs 5 lakhs that he owned.
However, to take a loan from the insurer itself or any bank, he needed to transfer the rights of the Insurance Policy to that entity. Thus he would have had to perform Conditional Assignment of the policy to that Bank. Then the bank would be able to pay out the loan money to him by taking the Insurance Policy as collateral. Thus, if Rahul failed to repay the loan, then the bank would surrender the policy and recover their money.
Once Rahul’s loan is completely repaid, then the policy would automatically come back to Rahul. In case, Rahul died before completely repaying the loan, then also the bank can surrender the policy to get their money back. This type of Assignment is called Conditional Assignment.
Example in real life of Conditional Assignment happens in case of an Insurance Policy being taken by the employer as a perquisite for the employee and it would be given only if he stays with the company for at least 5 years. Then the policy would be purchased by the employer on the employee’s name, but it would get transferred to him only when he completes 5 years. Once the employee completes 5 years of service, the policy gets transferred to him. This type of assignment or transfer of rights of a Life Insurance Policy is called Conditional Assignment.
