Changes at Endurance boost profits

Endurance Specialty posted strong growth in the second quarter of 2014 as it benefited from cost savings in the business and a shift in the composition of its portfolio in both insurance and reinsurance.

The company made a net profit of $75 million in the quarter compared with $52.8 million in the same period the year before. Its gross written premiums increased to $689.4 million, an increase of 20.4 percent compared with the same period in 2013.

The bigger part of this growth was generated by its reinsurance division, which increased to $367.9 million, an increase of 24.4 percent.

It said this growth was driven by increases within specialty and professional lines, partially offset by declines within its property/casualty lines of business. Its professional lines second quarter 2014 gross premiums written grew $71.6 million primarily as a result of a large quota share contract that was extended and to a lesser extent from several new quota share contracts written.

Within the specialty line of business, it said growth was generated by new underwriters within the energy, agriculture and surety businesses. The declines within the property and casualty lines of business were due to the continued non-renewal and re-underwriting of business that no longer met its profitability targets, the company said.

Its insurance unit’s gross written premiums increased to $44.6 million, a 4.7 percent rise. The growth in the insurance unit was generated by professional lines and casualty and other specialty lines of business, as well as its agriculture insurance business.

Its combined ratio for the period was 88.1 percent, which included 11.3 percentage points of favorable prior year loss reserve development, 5.6 percentage points of catastrophe losses from 2014 events and 2.5 percentage points of expenses related to the proposed acquisition of Aspen Insurance.

John Charman, chief executive of Endurance, said: “I am very proud to report that Endurance has generated another solid quarter of financial results, demonstrating not only continuing profitable premium growth and broadly improved loss ratios across our expanded global businesses, but importantly strong growth in our book value per share.

“The transformation of Endurance that we began just over a year ago is clearly visible in our overall operating and financial performance. With the core of our global underwriting leadership team now firmly in place and coordinating well, I believe that these positive, strategic improvements will continue to translate into stronger, more consistent performance in the future.”