Bermuda-based insurance and reinsurance giant Validus Holdings has posted record figures for 2013, the company has revealed.

Validus announced a net operating income of nearly $579 million — a massive 73.3 percent increase on 2012’s $333.8 million.

And gross underwritten premiums totalled $2.4 billion. — an increase of almost eleven percent on the previous year’s $2.1 billion.

The other two arms of the Validus business, Talbot Underwriting and AlphaCat Managers — also reported “significant success”, with Talbot also reporting record gross premiums of $1.1 billion and record net operating income of $186.5 million.

And Validus chairman and CEO Ed Noonan said: “We still see opportunities to grow in Asia and Latin America — there will be significant growth out of Bermuda, but most of our growth will come from new products and or developing market territories.

“In Latin America there are good opportunities in Mexico, Columbia, Chile and Brazil. We also see opportunities across south east Asia, including China, but by no means limited to China.”

He said afterwards: “We are fortunate that our business model is working.”

Mr Noonan added that — despite competition from alternative capital sources — “we don’t feel alternative capital is encroaching on the areas of the business we make our money in.

“That could change in the future, but at this stage there is no indication it’s likely to.”

Net premiums earned at the end of last year totalled $2.1 billion compared to $1.87 billion at the end of 2012 — up 12.2 percent.

And underwriting income for the 2013 year-end jumped by more than 143 percent, up from $248.7 million at the end of 2012 to nearly $605 million — an increase of more than $356 million.