Hiscox, the Bermudian-headquartered global specialist insurer, has reported a pre-tax profit of $276 million for the first half of the year.

In its latest interim report, profit before tax was down $6.9 million compared with the same period last year.

Other highlights for the first six months ending June 30 included insurance contract written premium of $2.9 billion compared with $2.7 billion for the same period last year.

Insurance contract written premium grew by 5.7 per cent to $2.9 billion, with all three business segments growing and retail contributing the majority of the growth.

Its ongoing share buyback increased by $100 million to $275 million. Hiscox said this reflected its strong organic capital generation and capital management actions in the first half of the year.

Aki Hussain, group chief executive, said following strong organic capital generation and capital management actions, Hiscox has the flexibility to take further steps to improve its balance sheet efficiency.

Hiscox is rewarding shareholders immediately through an increase of $100 million to its ongoing share buyback, taking it from $175 million to $275 million.

“Our balance sheet remains in great shape, enabling us to keep investing to capture the opportunities ahead and accelerate retail growth,” Mr Hussain said, adding that Hiscox delivered a strong performance in the first half of the year with profitable growth in each of its businesses.

“In retail, growth momentum has continued in line with our expectations and we are expanding margins,” Mr Hussain said. “The benefits of our diversified business model and the quality of our underwriting ecosystem are reflected in our group results. The industry experienced the largest wildfire insurance event in history, despite this we achieved a strong operating return on tangible equity of 14.5 per cent.”.

He said Hiscox is successfully executing its strategy.

“Growth and earnings momentum continues to build in retail as we capture the vast structural opportunities, and we are selectively deploying capital into attractive opportunities across our diverse big-ticket businesses,” the CEO said.