Insurance and the claim

Un versement à titre gracieux is the payment an insurer makes when it does not have to, and the part worth learning is not the payment but the three words in front of it. À titre followed by an adjective is one of the most productive formulas in administrative French, and English has no counterpart to it at all. À titre gratuit and à titre onéreux cut the whole of contract law in two, the free and the paid-for; à titre indicatif marks a figure nobody may rely on; à titre provisoire marks an arrangement that will be looked at again; à titre exceptionnel says once and not again; à titre personnel says the speaker is not speaking for the firm. English has to build a fresh phrase every time: « for information only », « on a provisional basis », « in a personal capacity ». Two things to hold on to here. Gracieux in this frame has nothing to do with grace or good manners: it means at no charge and under no obligation. And English never translated the phrase at all. It left the Latin standing and calls the same money an ex gratia payment.