Profits fell slightly last year for the member companies of the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR), the industry body announced.

The 19 of ABIR’s 21 members who agreed to be surveyed racked up a combined $11 billion in net income — down from $11.7 billion in 2013.

The companies also wrote more business and ended the year with a larger capital base.

ABIR president Bradley Kading said: “As was the case in 2013, the $11 billion in net income demonstrated earnings power in years characterised by low catastrophe losses. But this number was still below net income reported by the membership in 2009.

“ABIR members reported their largest group total equity base in the nine years in which data have been collected; partly due to lower-than-average catastrophe losses.

“Last year was characterised by intense market competition as pension-fund capital converged with traditional re/insurance operations.

“As for this year, the long anticipated consolidation among ABIR members began in early 2015 and the four completed or pending acquisitions will dramatically change the landscape of this underwriting report in 2015.”

Among ABIR members, RenaissanceRe and Platinum have completed their merger, while other deals agreed are set to result in combinations of XL and Catlin, Axis and PartnerRe, and Endurance and Montpelier Re. These transactions, if they all go through, would reduce ABIR’s membership from 21 to 17 companies.

The 19 re/insurers surveyed wrote $74 billion in global gross written premium last year out of underwriting centres in Bermuda, Europe, Asia, North America and South America. This marked an increase on the $70.1 billion the group wrote in 2013 on a capital and surplus base of $99.3 billion (up from $95.4 billion in 2013).

Ace Ltd led the way, writing $23.4 billion in premium around the world, nearly a third of the group’s total. Second-most prolific was XL Group, with $8.09 billion in premium, followed by Catlin Group ($5.96 billion), PartnerRe ($5.93 billion), Arch Capital ($4.84 billion) and Axis Capital ($4.71 billion).

Ace, with net income of $2.85 billion in 2014, was also one of three to be able to count its annual profit in the billions. The others were reinsurer PartnerRe Ltd, which made $1.05 billion, and municipal bond insurance specialist Assured Guaranty, which generated $1.09 billion in net income.

In terms of total equity, Ace topped the list with $29.59 billion, ahead of XL with $11.43 billion, PartnerRe with $7.1 billion and Arch with $6.13 billion.

The best performer in terms of combined ratio — which reflects the proportion of premium dollars spent on claims and expenses and is an indicator of underwriting profitability — was bond insurer Assured Guaranty with 44 per cent.

Of the property and casualty re/insurers, it was the catastrophe reinsurance specialists who performed best in a year of lower-than-normal losses from catastrophe claims. RenRe was comfortably the most impressive, posting a 50.2 per cent combined ratio, while Montpelier Re recorded a 65.2 per cent figure.

As well as profits, premiums and scale, Ace was also the leader in efficient underwriting. Its expense ratio of 29.4 per cent was the only figure below 30 among the group. PartnerRe managed 30 per cent, while Allied World posted 30.3 per cent.

The full ABIR Global Underwriting Report is available under the heading ‘Related Media’ on this webpage.