Endurance Specialty Holdings last night reported a year-end net income of $92.1 million and easily beat the expectations of analysts on Wall Street. The gain compares with a Q1 2012 net income of $74.4 million.Bermuda re/insurer reported an operating income of $89.8 million, or $2.08 per common share — far exceeding the estimates of the seven analysts polled by Yahoo Finance who predicted Endurance would see an operating income of just $1.11 per common share on revenues of $907.70 million.The company wrote more business in the first three months of this year with gross premiums written coming in at $1.18 billion — up from $1.06 in the first quarter of 2012.Net premiums written were $908.9 million for the quarter — a 7.8 percent increase over the same period in 2012.The company’s combined ratio was also improved at 85 percent compared to the first three months of 2012 when it was 96.5 percent.In the company’s reinsurance segment, Endurance recorded $504.2 million in net premiums written — a 21.4 percent increase year-over-year as well as a combined ratio or 77.1 percent — an improvement of 16.1 percent.Endurance CEO David Cash says he’s please with the company’s start to 2013."We had an excellent start to the year with strong financial performance and solid progress in the ongoing development of our businesses,” Mr Cash said. “Net premiums written increased as a result of a successful January first renewal season in our reinsurance segment as we saw the benefit from our international expansion and the addition of specialty underwriting teams hired in 2012.“Strategically, momentum is accelerating as we have attracted several new leaders and teams to our global insurance and reinsurance operations."The company’s net investment income for the quarter was $49.3 million — a decrease of $7.8 million from the same period 2012.The company’s book value per share was $54.10 at the end of Q1, an increase of 2.3 percent from year-end 2012.