A life insurance assignment is a document that allows you to transfer the ownership rights of your policy to a lender, for instance when you take out a mortgage. You would be transferring all rights of ownership under your policy, including the rights to make decisions regarding coverage, beneficiary and investment options to the lender.  When taking out a mortgage for your family home it will be a condition of the loan offer that you have to life cover in place to cover the mortgage, not all lenders actually want an assignment of the policy though.