You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: On the call, in addition to myself, you also have Bill Berkeley, our Executive Chairman; and Rich Baio, Group Chief Financial Officer.
We're going to follow a similar agenda to what we've done in the past.
Rich is going to do the initial heavy lift and walk us through the quarter and some of the highlights.
I will follow him with a few comments and then we'll be opening it up for Q&A and happy to take the conversation anywhere participants would like to take it.
So with that, Rich, if you want to get us going please.
The headline in this quarter is a record underwriting profit with premium growth of more than 11% and solid net investment income in gains, which resulted in a return on beginning of year equity of 14.5%.
The company reported net income of $230 million or $1.23 per share.
The breakdown is operating income of $202 million, or $1.08 per share, and after-tax net investment gains of $28 million or $0.15 per share.
Beginning with underwriting income and the components thereof, gross premiums written grew by more than $250 million, or 11.4% to almost $2.5 billion.
Net premiums written grew 11.1% to more than $2 billion, reflecting an increase in both segments.
The insurance segment grew approximately 10% on this $1.75 billion in the quarter, with an increase in all lines of business with the exception of workers’ compensation.
Professional liability led this growth with 37.6%, followed by commercial auto with 21%.
Other liability of 13.1% in short tail lines of 5.6%.
All lines of business grew in the reinsurance and monoline access segment, increasing net premiums written by 18.2% to more than $300 million.
Casualty reinsurance led this growth with 21.9% followed by 13.8% in property reinsurance, and 13.6% in monoline access.
The compounding rate improvement in excess of loss cost trends has partially contributed to the expansion of underwriting income.
Other contributors have included lower claims frequency and non-cat property losses, along with growth in lines of business that are generating the best risk adjusted returns.
Underwriting income increased approximately 250% to $183 million.
The industry continue to experience above average catastrophe losses in the quarter, including the winter storms in Texas.
And we have again, been able to demonstrate our disciplined management to cat exposure.
Our current accident year catastrophe losses were approximately $36 million or 1.9 loss ratio points, including 0.8 loss ratio points for COVID-19 related losses.
This compares with the prior year cat losses of $79 million or 4.7 loss ratio points, which included three loss ratio points for COVID-19 related losses.
The reported loss ratio was 60.6% in the current quarter, compared with 65.5% in 2020.
Prior year loss reserves developed favorably by $3 million or 0.2 loss ratio points in the current quarter.
Accordingly, our current accident year loss ratio excluding catastrophes was 58.9% compared with 61% a year ago.
The expense ratio was 29.5%, reflecting an improvement of 1.9 points over the prior year quarter.
The growth in net premiums earned continues to outpace underwriting expenses by a margin of almost 7%, significantly benefiting the expense ratio.
Although we continue to benefit from reduced costs associated with travel and entertainment due to the pandemic, we are implementing initiatives that will enable us to operate more efficiently in the future.
Summing this up, our accident year combined ratio excluding catastrophes was 88.4%, representing an improvement of four points over the prior year quarter.
Shifting gears to investments.
Net investment income for the quarter was approximately $159 million.
The alternative investment portfolio including investment funds, and arbitrage trading account provided strong results.
The fix maturity portfolio declined due to the lower interest rate environment and the higher cash and cash equivalent position we've maintained over the past few quarters.
We did begin to reinvest cash as interest rates rose in the quarter, however, continue to maintain a defensive position with more than $2 billion in cash and cash equivalents.
Our duration remains relatively short at 2.4 years, enabling us to further benefit from future increases in interest rates and at the same time, our credit quality remains strong at AA minus.
Pre-tax net investment gains in the quarter of $35 million is primarily made up of realized gains on investments of $76 million, partially offset by a reduction in unrealized gains on equity securities of $24 million, and an increase in the allowance for expected credit losses of $17 million.
The realized gain was primarily attributable to the sale of a private equity investment in real estate assets.
Corporate expense partially increased due to debt extinguishment costs of $3.6 million relating to the redemption of hybrid securities on March 1.
In line with our plans to benefit from the low interest rate environment, we've pre funded for a redemption and a couple of maturities in early 2022.
To this end, you will have seen that we announced the redemption of our hybrid securities for June 1, which will result in debt extinguishment costs in the second quarter of approximately $8 million pre-tax.
Stockholders' equity increased more than $100 million to approximately $6.4 billion, after share repurchases and dividends of $51 million in the quarter.
The company repurchased approximately half a million shares for $30 million in 2021 at an average price per share of $63.82.
Our net unrealized gain position in stockholders equity declined by $90 million due to the rise in interest rates in the quarter.
However, this was partially mitigated by our decision to maintain a relatively short duration.
Book value per share grew 2.4% before share repurchases and dividends.
And finally, cash flow from operations, more than doubled quarter-over-quarter to over $300 million.
I noticed that there's a correlation here that, the better the quarter, the less you leave for me to comment on.
So I guess I should be pleased and grateful that there's not much left for me.
Having said that, let me offer a couple of comments that try not to be too repetitive on the heels of Rich's comments.
But I really would like to flag a couple of things.
First off, there is no doubt that there is a meaningful tailwind that exists in the commercial lines marketplace.
And certainly this organization is benefiting from that.
And to that end, our top line, I think this is the highest growth rate we have seen since which I think you have to go back to 2013.
You had mentioned to me when you look back in the history books.
And not only the growth and market conditions attractive, I think what's even more encouraging is that there is a growing amount of evidence that the momentum is going to grow from here and that there is a fair amount of runway still before us.
So again, I think that bodes well for not just how we see the coming quarters unfold, but quite frankly the next several years.
To that end, clearly the domestic economy and certainly parts of the global economy are improving.
And that without a doubt is going to benefit our top line.
We are seeing the health and wellness of our insureds continuing to improve.
In addition to that perfect comment a moment ago, we continue to see the opportunity to push rate further.
You may have noticed that we got approached in 13 points of rate in the quarter, excluding workers’ compensation.
I did have a little bit of a discussion internally and we dug into it as to how do you compare this approaching 13 points of rate with what we saw on the fourth quarter.
And after digging into it, really what this is a reflection of is, there are parts of the portfolio where rate adequacy has gotten to the point where we are so encouraged by the available margin, that we are more interested in pushing harder on the exposure growth, and not as preoccupied and pushing harder on the rate front.
And again, we view that as a real plus.
This is we are coming up for some of the major product lines on a third year in a row where we are getting meaningful rate increases.
And at this stage, we are seeing as Rich suggested rate on rate and in many product lines where we have been getting rate on rate in excess of loss cost trend.
Again, we think that is very encouraging for what that means for margin.
Before I offer a couple of thoughts on the loss ratio, couple other quick data points that I've referenced on occasion in the past.
Renewal retention ratio, in spite of what we're pushing on with rates.
And all of the other underwriting actions that we are taking, is still hanging in there at approximately 80%.
And our new business relativity metric, which is another data point we've shared with many of you in the past came in at 1.024%, which effectively what that means is on as much of an apples to apples basis as we are able to create in comparing a new account versus a renewal account, we are effectively surcharging a new account by 2.4% more.
Why, because a new piece of business unless about, then obviously, it's part of your portfolio that you've been on for some period of time.
And I think it's important because people need to understand when you look at the growth, yes, it is rate, but it's also exposure growth.
But we are not compromising in that growth in the quality of the portfolio.
Rich gave you some detail which complemented the relief on the loss ratio.
Clearly, as he suggested, we're benefiting from the higher rates, couple other data points, I would suggest, we are not taking a lot of credit for shift in terms and conditions, when we come up with many of our loss picks.
We will take some oftentimes, but certainly we are never taking full credit for it.
We want to see how that comes into focus.
So more to come on that front.
The other piece, and I suspect that there has been some other discussion around the impact on frequency due to COVID.
Again, that is something that we have been reluctant to declare victory on.
There certainly are some lines of business where you have more immediate visibility as to what the impact of that reduction in frequency there are other product lines, where there is less visibility.
On that topic, I did want to offer a couple of quick comments on workers compensation, which is the one outlier as we've discussed in the past couple of quarters as far as the marketplace and where things are going.
Clearly workers compensation has been a product line where competition has been on the rise.
We've seen the action of state rating bureaus.
And ultimately we'll have to see how that unfolds over time.
One is, from our perspective, it is likely that the pendulum will swing too far in a certain direction.
And as a result of that, as we have shared with people in the past, it continues to be our view that we expect the workers’ comp market to likely begin to bottom out more visibly, by the end of this year or perhaps the first half of next year.
Could it be a quarter or two later?
Yes, but generally speaking, that's how we see things coming into focus.
The other comments on workers comp that I would like to flag because there's been an observation or two shared around the last picks that we are carrying for the 2020 year and given how benign the frequency has been in 2020.
Why have we not done anything with that pick, and it's very simple.
We do not want to declare victory prematurely.
As we have in the past, start out with what we believe is a measured pick and as that seasons, we will adjust as we see, fit and appropriate.
So, the last comment on comp which I will offer, and I think I've made the comment in the past, is that, I think that the lack of frequency that has existed recently in the comp line due to COVID, as to a certain extent, perhaps subsidize a severity trend, which looks pretty ugly in the comp line.
And certainly it is possible that the marketplace is setting itself up for a disappointment, if there is not an appropriate level of attention paid to loss cost trend, and really unpacking what is going on with severity, what is going on with frequency and what one should expect as frequency returns to a more traditional norm.
I will leave it there as far as comp, that's perhaps more than people were looking for.
Expense ratio, again, Rich touched on.
As we've mentioned in the past, COVID is offering effectively a benefit of about 50 basis points, the expense ratio.
So when he and I sort of do the back of the envelope math, that's what we're back in to the expense ratio.
Having said that, it's also worth noting that we have some meaningful investments that are going on in the business, in particular on the technology as well as the data analytics front.
And these are big lifts, which we think are clearly going to make us a better business more efficient, and will allow us to be able to be making better, more insightful decisions.
And let me just move on briefly to investment portfolio, I'm not going to get into much detail here because Rich really covered it.
I would just say that our approach to focus on total return, our emphasis on alternatives, continues to pay off.
And quite frankly, it is helping to compensate and then some the discipline that we are exercising with how we're managing the fixed income portfolio.
As Rich mentioned, we continue to maintain the duration on the shorter end at 2.4 years.
And the quality is not something that we have or will be compromising on sitting there at AA minus.
That being said, we are being rewarded for that discipline, as you can see where our book value ended up at the end of the quarter.
And while we were not completely insulated, we were far less impacted than those that have decided to take duration out farther.
I just want to offer a couple of quick comments on what I'll refer to as cycle management.
From our perspective, cycle management is the name of the game.
Knowing when to grow, knowing went to shrink.
We as a team are very conscious of the fact that we cannot control the market, we are very conscious of the fact that this is a cyclical industry and we are very aware of the reality that what we are able to control is what we do.
Oftentimes people will ask the Chairman or Rich or myself, where are the best opportunities?
And the answer we give because we do not want to get into the details is, look at our business, look at our public information, look at where we are growing.
We grow where the margins are, we grow where the opportunity is.
And we are not shy or scared or intimidated to let the business go, when we don't think it is a good use of capital.
You can see that very clearly in our numbers.
Right now you can see the discipline that our colleagues are exercising in the workers comp line.
You can see in other parts of the business, whether it be the primary insurance, professional liability line, or what's happening in parts of our reinsurance portfolio.
We are in the business of managing capital and we are going to deploy it where we think it makes sense.
And again, we have our eyes wide open.
And that is a bit of recognition, for where we are.
This business, from my perspective is particularly well positioned for the market conditions we are in, and likely what the market conditions will be tomorrow.
We are here because we have a fabulous team.
We have 6543 people that work together as a team in the interest of all stakeholders.
And we were able to achieve this quarter because of their efforts in spite of the challenges that exists in the world, particularly over the past 12 years.

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compname reports net income per diluted share $1.23.
qtrly net income per diluted share $1.23.
qtrly operating income per diluted share $1.08.

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