Aspen Insurance Holdings Ltd. posted lower first-quarter net income as lower underwriting profit — due partly to the Baltimore bridge disaster — outpaced investment gains.
First-quarter net income available to ordinary shareholders fell to $98 million from $118 million a year earlier. Gross written premiums rose to $1.23 billion from $1.05 billion. The combined ratio worsened to 86.6 from 80.9.
Underwriting income fell to $90 million from $122 million. Net investment income rose to $77 million from $60 million.
“We benefited from continuing favorable trading conditions in many of our classes of business achieving 17% growth in year-over-year gross written premium,” Mark Cloutier, executive chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. “In addition, we achieved risk adjusted rate change and adequacy metrics on the aggregate portfolio that were better than planned.”
The results include a provision within catastrophe losses for Aspen’s exposure to the Francis Scott Key Bridge event, which was “within expectations given the size of this industry event,” he said.
The current accident year losses include a “modest” provision for losses on certain policies exposed to credit risk, he said.
“The strong performance for the quarter aligns well with our expectations of producing mid- to high-teen returns across industry cycles and loss event sets, Cloutier said.
Aspen earlier posted higher fourth-quarter net income as premiums fell as the group limited its exposure to classes such as directors and officers and financial lines. In the fourth quarter, overall GWP were broadly in line with the prior year as active management of the portfolio in response to market conditions brought reductions in financial and professional insurance lines, offset by targeted growth in property/casualty lines, Aspen said at the time.