Reinsurance

The second entry is le portefeuille cédé, and the word that closes it is a past participle doing an adjective’s work — so it agrees, and English has nothing of the sort to fall back on. Masculine singular here means no visible ending at all; change the noun and the ending arrives by itself: la part cédée, les risques cédés, les primes cédées. With être the same participle agrees with the subject, which is easily remembered — la police a été résiliée. With avoir it agrees with nothing, and that is where a reader stops one line too early, because there is an exception a reinsurance file walks into on every page. When the direct object stands before the verb, the participle agrees with it: la part qu’il a cédée, ces risques, il les a cédés, quelles primes a-t-il encaissées ?. Put the object back after the verb and the ending disappears again — il a cédé la part. Word order decides the ending, not meaning, and that ending is often the only thing on the page saying what a relative pronoun refers to.