Despite solid first-quarter financials, Hamilton, Bermuda-based Aspen Insurance Holdings Ltd. is repositioning itself amid persistent soft reinsurance prices and said Thursday that top executive Rupert Villers will step down later this year.

The insurer and reinsurer reported first-quarter net income of $128.0 million, up 6.7% from the same period a year ago. Net written premiums rose to $763.2 million, up 9.4%.

However, the company's first-quarter combined ratio rose to 1.9 percentage points 88.9%.

In a conference call with analysts, Aspen CEO Chris O'Kane credited the company's positive numbers to its willingness to shift capital away from unprofitable lines of business. This was especially true in its reinsurance segment, Mr. O'Kane said.

“In the commoditized, mainstream property catastrophe reinsurance area where prices are falling, we have managed our exposures both by moving capital away and by using Aspen Capital Markets,” he said of the company's third-party capital entity. “We then redeploy that capital to where rates are less pressured and where we are getting paid for our thoughtful approach to underwriting.”

With that strategy, Aspen is moving away from writing property catastrophe reinsurance to more specialty reinsurance, which now accounts for 22% of the gross written premiums in its reinsurance unit, Mr. O'Kane said.

“In specialty (reinsurance), we can take advantage of a diverse set of lines and geographies where rates are less pressured, and we are able to offer our clients multiple solutions across a wider spectrum of classes such as credit, surety, crop and political risk,” he said.

Likewise, on the insurance side, Aspen is looking to write more international business through its Lloyd's of London platform, Mr. O'Kane said.

Mr. Villers, chairman of Aspen Insurance and president of Aspen International Insurance, will step down at the end of October, Aspen said in a statement. He will stay on as president until the end of July and retain the role of chairman until his departure.

“This was a perfectly executed succession,” Mr. O'Kane said. “We've known about this for six years. We knew that Rupert couldn't be around forever, not that any of us are.”

Ann Haugh will succeed Mr. Villers as president of International Insurance at the end of July in addition to her current responsibilities as global chief operating officer of Aspen Insurance.