Liberty Mutual’s profit jumped in the second quarter on the sale of a life business, increased revenue and a more benign natural catastrophe environment.

Net profit grew to $US981 million ($1.3 billion) from $US127 million ($171 million), while revenue gained 8% to $US10.3 billion ($13.9 billion).

The combined operating ratio improved by 4.9 percentage points to 97.9%.

This came as “global catastrophes returned to historical levels and core underwriting results improved across many business segments”, CEO David Long says.

The earnings included $US464 million ($626 million) from the sale of Liberty Life Assurance of Boston.

The company realigned its business earlier this year into two key divisions: global retail markets and global risk solutions.

In retail markets, net written premium from private passenger vehicles, the largest line, grew 3.9% to $US3.5 billion ($4.7 billion) on US rate rises, organic growth and higher retention in overseas markets. Homeowners net written premium grew 5.7% to $US1.79 billion ($2.42 billion), also on US rate increases.

Global risk solutions’ specialty insurance net written premium jumped 24.5% to $US1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) after last year’s acquisition of Ironshore.

For the first half, overall net profit increased to $US1.63 billion ($2.2 billion) from $US477 million ($643.7 million) in the corresponding period last year.