Lower catastrophe losses helped send The Travelers Companies,Inc.'s 2013 fourth-quarter net income soaring 225% to $988 million,compared to 2012 fourth-quarter net income of $304 million.

Catastrophe losses, net of reinsurance, were $53 million in thequarter, compared to $1.05 billion in 2012's fourth quarter. Thesharp drop drove a reversal in underwriting results for Travelers—again of $689 million in 2013's fourth quarter compared to anunderwriting loss of $338 million for the same period theyear before. The combined ratio dropped in the quarter to87.7 compared to 105.4 in 2012's fourth quarter.

Travelers' fourth-quarter results also benefitted from a $37million gain in favorable prior-year reserve development—$259million in 2013's fourth quarter compared to $222 million the yearbefore. For the year, though, favorable reserve development wasdown to $840 million compared to $940 million in 2012.

Fourth-quarter net-written premiums increased 5% to $5.6billion. Travelers says the increase is due to a 29% increase innet-written premiums (to over $1 billion) in its financial,professional and international insurance segment, which occurred asbusiness from The Dominion of Canada General InsuranceCompany—acquired on Nov. 1, 2013—was included in the segment.

Travelers also saw a 3% gain in its business-insurance segmentnet-written premiums to $2.9 billion. Net-written premiums in thecompany's personal-insurance segment, though, were down 4% in thequarter to $1.7 billion.

For the full-year 2013, Travelers reports net income of $3.7billion, up 49% from 2012. Travelers says it achieved a $2.2billion underwriting gain for the year compared to a gain of $507million in 2012.

Catastrophes for the year—consisting primarily of wind and hailstorms in the Midwest and Storm Xaver in the UK—cost $591 millioncompared to $1.9 billion in 2012.

In a conference call, Jay Fishman, Travelers chairman and CEO,said, “I don't think we could be more pleased than we are withthese results,” which he added were achieved in the face ofchallenges such as historically low interest rates and volatileweather.

He says the favorable results should “not be viewed inisolation,” but rather as part of a strategy that began in 2010 toincrease the profitability of the insurer's products by improvingprice, terms and conditions while not disrupting relationships withinsureds and agents.