James River Group Holdings, Ltd made a first-quarter profit of $22.7 million, or 75 cents per share. That was a 45 per cent improvement on the $15.6 million, or 52 cents per share, achieved a year ago.

Adjusted net operating income for the first quarter of 2019 was $21.7 million, or 71 cents per share, beating the 64 cents consensus estimate of analysts tracked by Yahoo Finance.

The Bermuda re/insurer’s expense ratio was 22.6 per cent, an improvement of 2.3 percentage points year-on-year.

Gross written premiums were $327.3 million, an improvement of 10 per cent.

Robert Myron, chief executive officer, said: “We have begun 2019 with an outstanding quarter, generating a 16.9 per cent annualised adjusted net operating return on average tangible equity. We also grew tangible book value per share inclusive of dividends by 10.4 per cent during the quarter. We had strong earnings contributions across the organisation, as all three operating segments generated positive underwriting income.

“We were again able to achieve rate increases on our core excess and surplus renewals, which were up 3 per cent in the quarter year over year, and submissions increased 17 per cent. I am pleased that we grew gross written premium 14 per cent across our two primary insurance segments, E&S lines and specialty admitted insurance, as this is where we have been focusing our growth efforts.”

Mr Myron said investment income increased 47 per cent over the prior year quarter, as the company benefited from the investment markets’ rebounding during the first three months of the year.