Aspen Insurance Holdings Limited posted a profit of $40.1 million for the quarter ending June 30.The company’s second-quarter profit of $0.36 per share was down from $84.6 million or $1.03 per share in the same period last year.Net-written premiums increased to $612.7 million from $581.9 million last year. Other revenues totaled $39.0 million, down from $48.0 million last year.Chris O’Kane, chief executive officer, commented: “In the second quarter, Aspen delivered solid operating results in an above average catastrophe quarter, with our combined ratio excluding catastrophes improving modestly from last year. We continue to make progress on the three initiatives we outlined earlier this year to drive increased profitability.“We have released $70 million of capital in our US property insurance line, and our US operations overall continue to gain scale and momentum towards sustainable profitability.“We executed over $240 million of share repurchases in the first six months of the year and continued to carefully reallocate a portion of our investment portfolio to achieve higher risk-adjusted returns. We remain intensely focused on executing these initiatives and achieving increased profitability.”Operating highlights for the quarter ended June 30, 2013 include:Gross written premiums increasing overall by 3.1 percent to $687.3 million in the second quarter of 2013 from the second quarter of 2012. Gross written premiums in reinsurance were flat while insurance grew 6.0 percent;A combined ratio of 97.1 percent for the second quarter of 2013 compared with a combined ratio of 87.3 percent for the second quarter of 2012.The company said this increase was due to $58.7 million or 10.9 percentage points, of pre-tax catastrophe losses net of reinsurance recoveries and $5.2 million of reinstatement premiums in the second quarter of 2013, compared with no catastrophe losses in the second quarter of 2012.The board of directors of Aspen also declared a quarterly cash dividend on Aspen’s ordinary shares of $0.18 per ordinary share. The dividend is payable on August 27, 2013 on August 9, 2013.