Endurance Profits Up in Quarter

NU Online News Service, July 31, 4 :01 p.m.EDT?Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd. this week posted a$66.8 million second-quarter profit, a 113 percent increase overthe $31.3 million in income recorded on one year ago.

The company's gross premiums written improved by 147 percentrising to $652.7 from $264.3 million posted a year earlier.

The combined ratio for the quarter, rose to 84.2 from 75 oneyear ago. This up tick, the company said, represents an increasingmix of casualty insurance, casualty treaty reinsurance, and workinglayer property reinsurance business for Endurance.

Kenneth LeStrange, chief executive officer for the company,commented that "strong results for the quarter" provide furtherevidence of the success of the company's strategy, which involves"writing both casualty and property businesses, maintaining aconservative balance sheet, and identifying and deliveringvalue-enhancing acquisitions."

Mr. LeStrange added that in the second quarter, his companyexperienced increasingly strong results from its casualty segments,"which benefited from selective underwriting and a continued strongpricing environment."

Endurance offers a variety of property-casualty coverage throughits subsidiaries in Bermuda, the U.K. and the United States, withan emphasis on catastrophe policies.

The company's primary lines include property individual risk andcasualty individual risk, while reinsurance lines include propertyper risk treaty reinsurance and property catastrophe reinsurance,as well as casualty treaty reinsurance.

Chicago-based Aon Corporation owned 26 percent of Endurancebefore its initial public offering this past March.

Founded in 2001 in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,the company posted a net income of $102.1 million in 2002, from$421.5 million in sales.