Bermudian-based insurer and reinsurer Hiscox Ltd saw its profit more than halved for the first six months of the year.

Its pre-tax profit of $102.6 million was down from the $206 million for the same period last year.

However, if the impact of foreign currency exchange is factored in, the pre-tax profit figure was $133.5 million, up from $118.7 million.

Bronek Masojada, chief executive officer of Hiscox, said: “We are managing the cycle and driving retail growth as our long-held strategy of balancing the portfolio between volatile big-ticket business and steady retail business continues to deliver.

“Despite tough market conditions we are finding opportunities.”

Gross premiums written for the six months stood at $1.4 billion, up from the $1.28 billion a year ago.

Net premiums earned for the period totalled $936.6 million, compared to $767.5 million.

Robert Childs, Hiscox chairman, said: “The retail operations we have been diligently building for more than 20 years are offsetting ongoing volatility in bigger ticket lines and it’s pleasing to see that Hiscox Retail has made the biggest contribution to the bottom line in the first half for the second consecutive year.

“We now have more than 750,000 retail customers.”

He added: “Conditions in the London market continue to test our mettle. We have trimmed back in some of the most affected areas — making difficult but necessary decisions to reduce our involvement or withdraw completely from some lines of business.”

“In Hiscox Re and ILS, we are benefiting from strong underwriting heritage and product innovation.

“We are pleased with this result, but as usual we look forward with caution to the second half of the year as the hurricane season approaches.”

Mr Childs said “the weather has been good to us” in the first six months of the year and that the firm, as well as the industry as a whole, “had benefited from a benign catastrophe claims environment”.

He added that Hiscox had “minimal exposure” to high-profile events like the Grenfell Tower fire in London, and Cyclone Debbie, which hit parts of Australia and New Zealand in March.

Mr Childs added that Ernst Jansen and Gunnar Stokholm would retire from the board in mid-November after nine years as UK finance regulations would consider them non-independent after that time.

Michael Goodwin, Thomas Huerlimann and Costas Miranthis, will join the board.

Mr Miranthis is based in Bermuda and has extensive reinsurance experience from his time as president of PartnerRe.

Mr Goodwin is an expert in the Asia Pacific region and is a former CEO at QBE Insurance, as well as vice-president of the General Insurance Association of Singapore.

Mr Childs said that Mr Huerlimann brought “valuable leadership experience” most recently as CEO of Zurich Global Corporate.