Validus Holdings Ltd last night posted a record first quarter profit, easily beating Wall Street expectations.

Bermuda-based reinsurer reported a net income of $223.2 million, or $1.90 per common share for the three months ending on March 31, 2013 compared to $124.2 million, or $1.18 per share for the same period last year.

It also reported an annualised return on average equity of 22.5 percent and annualised net operating return on average equity of 21.8 percent.

The company’s net operating earnings of $215.6 million, or $1.83 per common share comfortably exceeded the $1.43 per share consensus of the 11 analysts polled by Yahoo Finance. Net operating income for the same quarter of 2012 was $92.9 million or $0.88 per share.

The company benefited from the absence of notable loss events in the first quarter of this year, compared to Q1 of 2012 when the company incurred $98.9 million of losses.

Validus also grew its diluted book value per share in the first quarter of this year by 5.3 percent, inclusive of a special dividend and recently increased common share dividend.

The company wrote more business as gross premiums written for the first three months of 2013, which included the business of Validus Re, Talbot and it’s sidecar AlphaCat, rose 31.9 percent or $267.5 million to $1.1 billion.

Gross premiums written for the same quarter of 2012 totalled $837.3 million.

Validus chairman and CEO said he’s pleased with the results.

“Our results were excellent,” Mr Noonan said. “Both gross and net premiums written at Validus Re grew measurably, largely due to the agricultural reinsurance business we described in our earnings call a quarter ago and the business we acquired from Flagstone.

“All three of our segments — Validus Re, Talbot and AlphaCat — reported strong earnings which taken together allowed us to achieve a record result for the first quarter.”

He added: “Validus’ market leading short tail focused franchise continues to thrive as a result of our commitment to underwriting profitability above all else. Conditions are competitive but rates remain more than adequate in our core classes of business.”

Unde rwriting income for the first quarter was $210.1 million compared to $69.3 million in the same period last year — an increase of 203.3 percent.

Combined ratio, a reflection of underwriting profitability and the proportion of premium dollars spent on claims and expenses, was 60.5 percent — an improvement over the same quarter last year when the combined ratio was 84.6 percent.