Zurich Insurance Group Ltd. on Thursday reported net income after taxes of $926 million for the first quarter of 2016, down 27.1% from the year-ago period.

The Swiss insurer posted total revenue of $13.83 billion for the quarter, a decrease of 39.6% from the first quarter of 2015.

General insurance gross written premiums fell 9.8% to $9.12 billion from last year, largely due to re-underwriting and de-risking actions to improve performance that were announced last year, the company said in a statement.

The general insurance segment reported net income before taxes of $611 million for the quarter, down 34.2% from a year ago, but an improvement over the last quarter's operating loss of $120 million.

The combined ratio totaled 97.7% a slight increase from last year's 96.7%. Zurich's Farmers segment's net income before taxes was down 13.8% at $343 million as Farmers Re reported a loss due to significant catastrophe losses at the Farmers Exchanges, including more than $250 million in claims related to two hailstorms that struck the Dallas/Fort Worth area in March.

Zurich Insurance cut 2015 pay for its top management by more than half after they failed to meet major performance targets, the company said in its annual report published in March.

“While it is still early in the process, these results show that the measures we put in place to improve the performance of our General Insurance business are taking effect,” Chief Financial Officer George Quinn said in a statement. “Even adjusting for a benign catastrophe claims environment, there has been an underlying improvement, and we expect to see this trend continue throughout the year.”

“What I can say today is that the group is fundamentally sound, reserves are adequate, capital is strong, and the brand is very strong,” said CEO Mario Greco, who took over in March, during a conference call with analysts. “That gives us a very firm foundation to build over the next months and years.”

Mr. Greco added that the “results are a step in the right direction in that they provide the early evidence that the measures we started last year are improving the performance of general insurance.”