delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company raises divers issues emanating from the trial which culminated in a final judgment, entered in favor of respondents Charles and Diane Molloy, awarding benefits found to be due them under a homeowner’s insurance policy for damage suffered and expenses incurred as a result of a fire in the Molloy abode on January 22, 1978. 1 Although we agree with the trial court’s ruling that, even if the allegation of Mr. Molloy’s pyromania is proven to be true, the co-insured spouse may be indemnified for her share of the loss, we determine the circuit court erred in holding that St. Paul is precluded, by reason of waiver, from proving Charles Molloy intentionally set the fire, and therefore erroneously removed from jury consideration the petitioner’s defense of arson as to the husband’s claim.
We now relate sufficient facts to give the reader the flavor of the extensive record in this case which is, to say the least, piquant. Charles Molloy was the only person present in the Bowie, Mаryland home, owned by him together with his wife as tenants by the entireties, on the afternoon and evening of January 22nd. According to Charles’ testimony below, the fire was started when the ember of his cigarette was dislodged, unknown to him, when he hung up a jacket upon returning home from a grocery store. As the fire smoldered in a pile of clothes on the floor of the closet onto which the ash dropped, Charles dozed off to sleep in front of the television. Late that afternoon, his story goes, the husband awoke to the sound of the family dog barking and a house full of smoke. His examination revealed open flames in the hallway, and, being unable to locate the telephone in the kitchen for the smoke, Mr. Molloy grabbed the dog and some clothes from elsewhere in the house, threw them into his automobile parked in the garage, gathered additional clothes piled on a ping-pong table near the vehicle, and *142 backed his auto out into the driveway, pausing to close the garage doоr behind him. Mr. Molloy then drove down the street on which his house was situated, passing a number of his neighbors’ homes without stopping, and proceeded a total distance of four and one-half miles, again passing several business establishments at which a phone could have been utilized, to a McDonalds Restaurant from which he notified the fire department. Charles returned to his residence some time later to discover that the fire had been brought under control. There, he talked briefly with the fire chief, who informed him that investigators would want to speak to him when they arrived. Mr. Molloy, however, wanted to find his wife, and departed for the home of his mother-in-law where he believed he would find her along with the couple’s children. Upon his arrival there a few minutes later, he stopped his automobile in the street, and blew the horn for ten or fifteen minutes, eventually provoking his in-law, with whom he was by his own description "on very poor terms,” to emerge from the house and to shout something from the driveway not audible to Charles. Apparently concluding from this unorthodox interaction that his wife was not there, he departed and eventually returned to his own residence at approximately 10:30 p.m., where, upon pulling up to the driveway, he observed his wife and Dewey Meadows, a long-time family friend, standing in the yard along with a large crowd of onlookers. Diane Molloy, together with the children, had spent the afternoon in a hotel five miles from the residence, and had been earlier alerted to the fire by a neighbor. Charles testified he was jealous of Dewey Meadows because Diane "confided in him on some things,” though he conceded that he had no reason to believe they had dated or were having an affair. According to Charles’ testimony, the sight of Diane and Mr. Meadows together rendered him, at once, infuriated, disoriented and depressed, causing him to drive away at a normal rate of speed. Fire Investigator Robert Edwards’ account differed from that of Charles on this point, however, for his testimony reveals that when hе and an assistant identified themselves to this respondent while he was seated in his car, Charles rolled up *143 the window and sped off. The investigators pursued the respondent for some distance in their vehicles, and then abandoned the chase. It seems that Mr. Molloy headed back to his mother-in-law’s house, for police officer Freeman Kidwell testified that he approached Charles at around 10:45 p.m. in relation to a disorderly conduct complaint made by the mother-in-law. Mr. Molloy respondеd to a request for identification by "yellLing] a couple of obscenities ... and drivfing] off.” Not surprisingly, this conduct gave rise to another chase, this one at high speeds, in which Charles apparently successfully ran two roadblocks, almost struck a police officer, and attempted to run several police vehicles off the road. Mr. Molloy was eventually apprehended, and the charge of arson of which he was later accused was nol prossed by the state’s attorney.
The Molloys thereafter made a claim fоr benefits under the fire insurance policy issued by St. Paul, and submitted proof of loss, an inventory of damaged items and estimates for the substantial work needed to refurbish the house. Petitioner, through its counsel, however, informed the insureds by letter that it was
not liable for this loss of January 22, 1978, by reason of the neglect of the insured to use all reasonable means to save and preserve the property at and after the loss. (See lines 11 through 22 of the 165 line standard fire policy.) The insurance company, of cоurse, reserves its right to invoke any other terms, conditions, or exclusions of the policy which may be applicable to this loss upon facts now known or which may later be discovered, [parenthetical in original. 2 ]
The declination of liability resulted in the institution of this litigation by the respondents in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County to enforce payment under the insurance
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contract. The matter was called for a jury trial on November 27, 1979, at which time, the respondents made a motion
in limine
to exclude any evidence tending to prove that either Mr. or Mrs. Molloy intentionally set the fire. In addition, the wife moved for summary judgment, urging that the only question as to her right to proceeds under the insurance policy was a legal issue: Whether a person, who holds property jointly as a tenant by the entirety, is chargeable with the improper conduct of the other spouse, so that the act of burning by the guilty insured would bar recovery under the policy by the innocent co-insured? Both motions were denied. At the closе of the evidence, however, the trial judge effectively modified these rulings — the first by instructing the jury that the defense of arson had as a matter of law been waived and that therefore the panel should disregard any evidence of an intentional burning, and the second, by informing the jury that it was to treat Mr. and Mrs. Molloy, and their interests in the property, separately, so that the wife would not necessarily be barred from recovering for her share of the benefits by the arson of her husband. With the issues limited by these instructions, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the respondents for $87,614.28, and upon the entry of final judgment, St. Paul noted an appeal to the Court of Special Appeals. That court affirmed the circuit court’s judgment,
St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Co. v. Molloy,
Petitioner St. Paul initially argues that the trial court erred in determining the insurance company waived its arson defense, and therefore improperly removed from jury consideration the evidence indicative of an intentional burning. So that Charles Molloy’s waiver argument as well as our disposition of it may bе fully comprehended, we believe it helpful to set out a few general principles, the correctness of which is not disputed by either party before this Court. The law of this State is in alignment with its counterparts existing in most if not all other jurisdictions, that, in regard to at least certain types of insurance policy provisions, "the right of an insurer to forfeit or void the
*145
policy may be lost by the doctrine of waiver or estoppel.”
Rubenstein v. Jefferson Nat’l Life,
Charles grounds his waiver argument solely on the legal effect of St. Paul’s reliance, both in the letter denying liability and the answer to the interrogatory, on the husband’s alleged breach of his contractual duty to save and preserve the property as a justification for its failure to pay. As the argument goes, since "[glood faith demands of an insurance
*146
company frank and open dealing with its policy holder,”
Spring Garden Insurance Co. v. Whayland, supra,
It is unnecessary to delve deeply into waiver resulting from the failure of the insurer to promptly inform the insured of a known ground of forfeiture, for in our view, the non-preservation clause of the policy, identified by St. Paul to justify its position, encompasses the arson defense. The firе insurance policy involved in this case contains no specific exclusion for a burning caused by the intentional act of the insureds, and one express policy provision which incorporates a forfeiture of coverage for damage caused by arson is, in fact, the non-preservation clause paraphrased in the declination of liability letter, and cited in the answer to the interrogatory.
3
We are not the first to recognize that an intentional act of destruction manifestly constitutes neglect of the most heinous variety to save and preserve the insured property.
See Rockingham Mutual Ins. Co.
v.
Hummel,
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We now review the propriety of one other ruling of the circuit court asserted by St. Paul to have been erroneous, which we must consider in order to fully dispose of this appeal. The insurance company urges that since the insured residence was owned by the couple as tenants by the entireties, their interests are joint, and not several, and therefore the arson of one, if it exists, is to be treated as the misconduct of bоth, defeating recovery by either. As correctly noted by the circuit court, this is an issue of first impression in Maryland, although we observe that it has been a problem vexing the appellate courts of some of our sister jurisdictions for the past several years, and has resulted in discordant conclusions in these other states.
Compare, Mercantile Trust Co.
v.
New York Underwriters Ins. Co.,
[t]his approach is bottomed on the premise that spouses who hold joint interests in insured property have a joint obligation to refrain from fraud, and so the fraud of one spouse necessarily becomes the fraud of the other. [Id.,384 A.2d at 399 .]
In analyzing this line of decisions, we observe that to the extent that the foundation of the traditional rule rests on the perceived link between co-ownership of property and a joint contractual obligation, whether the spouses hold the property by the entireties or in some other form of co-tenancy would seem to be of no consequence, for in either situation, each owner possesses an
undivided
interest in the
whole.
Indeed, whether the co-tenants are husband and wife, on the
*149
one hand, or joint property owners lacking the marital relationship, on the other hand, under this view should be immateriаl since in either of these cases a joint interest (sufficient to create a joint contractual obligation) in the insured property exists. Some courts have apparently accepted these logical extensions by applying the same type of rationale to other kinds of co-owners. See
Kosior v. Continental Ins. Co.,
While it is generally recognized that the tortious, or criminal conduct of a person is not attributable to his or her spouse simply by virtue of the marital relationship,
Hosey
v.
Seibels Bruce Group, S.C. Ins. Co., supra,
*150
In our opinion, whether an innocent co-insured, notwithstanding his or her spouse’s misconduct, can recover under an insurance contract, depends primarily upon whether the parties intended, and thus whether the contract contemplates, the obligations of the co-insureds to be joint or several.
Accord, e.g., Hosey, supra,
The mere fact that property is held by the entirety should not, standing alone, bar the innocent spouse’s recovery. "The unity of person of husband and wife [expressed through the tenancy by the entirety] gives no clue to the relationship that ought properly to obtain between the owners of the proceeds of insurance....” Hawthorne v. Hawthorne, supra,242 N.Y.2d at 51 ,192 N.E.2d at 21 . The insurance policy on the entirety property is a personal contract, appertaining to the parties to the contract and not to the thing which is subject to the risk insured against.
*151
We find the fact that the property owned by the Molloy’s was held by the entireties to be of no real significance to the resolution of the issue whether Mrs. Molloy may recover. As stated by the Delaware court, since "the case is fundamentally a contract dispute between an insurance company and a policy holder ... we look to the law governing that kind of problem rather than the law governing land titlеs.”
Steigler, supra,
the defense of arson or willful burning will generally not operate to defeat an insured’s recovery ... where ... there has been no finding that the insured directly set the fire, had knowledge and authorized its setting or later ratified the wrongful act. [Hosey v. Seibels Bruce Group, supra,363 So.2d at 753 ; Hildebrand v. Holyoke Mut. Fire Ins. Co., supra,386 A.2d at 331-32 ; Pawtucket Mutual Insurance Company v. Lebrecht, supra,190 A.2d at 423 .]
This Court’s decision in
Rent-A-Car Co. v. Fire Ins. Co., supra,
The rules utilized by the courts to aid in the construction of insurance policies, though generally well-known bear repeating here:
*152 "[i]t is well settled that in intеrpreting insurance contracts, words are to be given their customary and normal meaning. Absent ambiguity the construction of the contract remains within the province of the court and Maryland has not adopted the rule, followed in many jurisdictions, that an insurance policy is to be most strongly construed against the insurer. If the language of the insurance contract is ambiguous, however, construction is for the jury,[ 6 ] and the ambiguity is to be resolved against the company which prepared the policy and in fаvor of the insured.” [Bond v. Pennsylvania Nat’l Mut,289 Md. 379 , 384,424 A.2d 765 , 768 (1981).]
The homeowner’s insurance policy now before us designates "Charles J. Molloy and Diane M. Molloy” as "named insured,” with the residents of the household, the named insured’s spouse, relatives of either and any person under 21 years of age in the care of any insured being additionally defined as "insureds.” Elsewhere in the compact, it is provided that the policy shall be void "in case of any fraud or false swearing of the insured” and that no liability shall exist in the event of "neglect of the insured to use all reasonable means to save and preserve the property....” Thus, it appears that the obligations to refrain from fraud and to preserve the property are imposed not only on the named insured, but also on definitionally specified family members, dependents, and relatives. Nowhere in the policy is the precise nature of either the named insured’s interest in the insurance contract or the insured’s obligations under that contract specifically defined to be either joint оr several. We have no hesitation in concluding that "an ordinary person owning an undivided interest in property ... would naturally suppose that his individual interest in the property was covered by a policy which named him without
*153
qualification as one of the persons insured.”
Hoyt v. New Hampshire Fire Ins. Co., supra,
Judgment of the Court of Special Appeals reversed and case remanded to that court with instructions to reverse the judgment of the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County and remand the case to that court for a new trial as to the claim of Charles J. Molloy against St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company with respect to liability only, аnd for the entry of a judgment in favor of Diane M. Molloy for $43,807.14 plus interest from the date of the verdict on December 4,1979.
Costs to be paid one-half by Charles J. Molloy and one-half by St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company.
Notes
. The record indicates that the respondents had experienced some marital discord in the past, and in fact, Charles and Diane lived apart for several months in the year preceding the fire.
. During discovery, St. Paul relied on this same non-preservation clause of the poliсy in response to an interrogatory to "state the specific terms, conditions and/or exclusions of the policy to support your contention that you are not liable to either plaintiff....”
. The policy additionally provided that the contract would be void in the event of any fraud or false swearing on the part of the insured and that the company would not be liable for loss occurring while the hazard is increased by any means within the control or knowledge of the insured.
. Our conclusion here should in no way be understood as an implicit rejection of any of the several other arguments advanced by St. Paul, as supported by the amicus, to reverse the trial court’s finding of waiver. Three of the seemingly more meritorious contentions are: 1. the defense of arson,
*147
not a technical condition to recovery but a substantive defense designed in part to afford protection to the public, is not subject to waiver by an insurer as a matter of public policy,
see
Lawndale National Bank v. American Cas. Co., Reading, Pa.,
. Although we intimate no opinion either as to its constitutionality or its applicability to property held by the entireties, we note the General Assembly, by Code (1957,1979 Repl. Vol.), Art. 48A, § 367(c), has provided: A married woman may insure any property, real, personal or mixed, which she may own jointly or in severalty, in the same manner as if she were a feme sole.
. For a discussion of the jury’s role in resolving contractual ambiguity, and in what situations it arises,
see
Montauk Corp. v. Seeds,