Insurance and provision

The list for the letter nobody wants to write. Two of its entries sit next to each other and both are false friends. L’expertise is not expertise: it is the *inspection* — the visit somebody makes to look at the damage and put a figure on it, l’expertise a lieu mardi. And l’expert is the person who does it, which English calls a « loss adjuster » or a « claims assessor », never an expert. The French word does also mean skill in other contexts — son expertise en la matière — but on an insurance file it names an appointment. So « the expertise takes place on Tuesday » is not English, and reading l’expert passe demain as « a specialist is coming » misses that the visit decides how much gets paid. The French for expertise in the English sense is usually la compétence or le savoir-faire.