Reinsurance and insurance firm Axis Capital yesterday announced a 13 percent increase in gross premiums written last year.

The firm wrote $4.7 billion worth of business over the year, with increases coming from a $308 million hike (17 percent) in reinsurance business, while the insurance segment generated an increase of $250 million — up 11 percent.

Net premiums written increased by 18 percent to $3.9 billion and net premiums earned went up by nine percent to $3.7 billion.

The firm also reported operating income of $663 million, an operating return on average common equity of 21.1 percent, compared to 2012 operating income of $422 million and an operating return on average common equity of 8.2 percent.

Axis president and CEO Albert Benchimol said: “Axis has a good fourth quarter and a good year. Financially, it was a year of solid progress.

“Despite mixed markets, we increased our net written premiums by 18 percent for the year while delivering an operating return on equity of 12.1 percent.”

Mr Benchimol added: “Notwithstanding a difficult interest rate environment, we grew diluted book value per share seven percent for the year.

“We rewarded investors by again returning effectively all of our operating profits through dividends and buy-backs and we raised our dividend for the ninth consecutive year.”

And he said: “With total assets of $20 billion and total capital of $6.8 billion, we have never been stronger.”

Mr Benchimol said highlights of the Axis year included establishing a presence at Lloyd’s of London and re-entering the retail primary casualty markets and wholesale small account excess casualty in the US.

He added: “We expanded existing specialities — such as our highly successful professional, energy and marine lines — into new geographies, notably Asia and Australia.

“We continued to build Axis accident and health from a start-up into a meaningful participant in the niche markets of travel, accident and speciality health.”

Mr Benchimol said the firm had also set up a weather and commodities operation and a third party capital management business, while an expansion in the agricultural sector had “quickly proved its worth in 2013”.

He added that the firm’s goal was to reduce portfolio volatility and boost risk adjusted profitablilty, with efforts to deliver diversified growth and increase the balance in existing business part of its strategy.

Mr Benchimol said: “This is reflected in our combined ratio of 91 percent for the year, despite a high incidence of claims in our property and US D&O (directors and officers) books within our insurance segments.

“While there is still much work to do, I am confident our focus on portfolio optimisation will ultimately deliver even stronger performance.”

Mr Benchimol added that increased competition on pricing was a hot topic.

But he said that the industry remained “a business of relationships and risk selection”, with Axis well-placed to access, write and retain profitable business, as well as capitalise on its established specialities in insurance and reinsurance.

Benchimol added: “With these and the associated flexibility afforded us, we expect to continue to improve returns in 2014 as we make further progress in our various strategic initiatives.”