Hoeland v. Western Union Life Insurance

Citations

• 58 Wash. 100
• 107 P. 866
• 1910 Wash. LEXIS 899

Syllabus

<p>Insurance—Life Insurance—Warranties. Representations in an application for life insurance relating to the applicant’s health are warranties, and not expressions of opinion, where it is expressly stipulated in the application that they are warranted to be true; and a breach thereof avoids the policy, whether known to be false or not.</p> <p>Same—Construction op Application. An application for insurance answering questions as to enumerated diseases, among them the question “Headaches—severe, protracted, or frequent,” must be construed to mean headaches, severe, protracted, or frequent which were a disease, and the warranty of the answer “no” to such question only warrants that the insured had never had a disease of that character.</p> <p>Same—Breach of Warranty—Headaches. It cannot be said as a matter of law that headaches, severe, protracted, or frequent, are a disability or a disease so to as to render an insurance policy void for misrepresenting matters material to the risk.</p> <p>Same—Breach of Warranty—Evidence—Question for Jury. It is for the jury to determine whether there was a breach of warranty in an application for insurance that the insured had never had severe, protracted headaches amounting to a disease, where the company submitted proof that the insured had, for several years before making the application, had frequent and severe headaches.</p> <p>Insurance—Warranties—Burden of Proof. Where an applicant for insurance warrants that he had made true answers to questions propounded, the burden is upon him of alleging and proving the fact that his answers were not correctly written down; the medical examiner’s certificate being only prima facie evidence of the fact.</p> <p>Same—Warranties—Construction. Warranties in an application for insurance are strictly construed.</p> <p>Same—Warranties—Breach—Evidence—Sufficiency. There is no sufficient evidence to submit to the jury an issue as to breach of warranties that the insured had never consulted physician