Classification of Warranties and Manner of Stating the Same

Warranties may be either affirmative or promissory, while in certain forms of property insurance importance is also attached to "implied 'Warranties" i.e. those which are understood to exist in every case although no reference may have been made thereto in the contract. Affirmative warranties refer to facts or situations which exist either before or at the time of the issuance of the contract; while those that are promissory refer to matters which should or should not be transacted during the time that the contract is in force.

No special form of wording is necessary to make a statement a warranty. The courts have generally taken the position that the presence or absence of the word " warranted" is not conclusive in this respect. Warranties, however, must form a part of the contract, and where policies .aim to state explicitly the various provisions upon which the validity of the contract depends, as is the case in life insurance, the courts have shown a reluctance to consider Statements as warranties unless they are expressly defined as such. As summarized by Richards: "A statement in an extraneous paper merely referred to in the policy is not a warranty; but if the policy, and such is usually the case with the life policy, makes the application a part of the contract, and the basis of the undertaking, then the statements of fact or stipulations therein contained, whether relating to the past, present, or future, become warranties". It may be added that the general rules applied in the construction of the insurance contract also apply to the construction of warranties, and that in interpreting the same the courts lean towards the insured wherever latitude is possible because the meaning of the warranty is surrounded by doubt or ambiguity.