Everest Re Group Ltd. saw second-quarter 2017 net income jump 57.8% over the prior-year period to $245.7 million, as positive developments propelled the reinsurer’s financial results.

Most measures of the company’s performance improved, Hamilton, Bermuda-based Everest Re said Monday in its quarterly earnings report.

Second-quarter premiums earned rose 6.3% to $1.37 billion as the company’s combined ratio for the period improved to 90.5% from 95.1% in the second quarter of 2016 and net investment grew 1.3% to $134.5 million.

Premiums for Everest Re’s insurance unit were up 25% quarter over quarter due to “continued growth on new initiatives,” the company said in its report.

On a call Tuesday morning discussing the results, John Doucette, executive vice president and president and CEO of the company’s reinsurance division, said Everest Re remains “optimistic” despite a tough market.

Mr. Doucette said international property rates were down about 5.1% at July 1 renewals and that, “rather than chase the market down,” Everest Re “selectively allocated capital” in the market.

Catastrophe losses, net of reinsurance, amounted to $53.5 million in the quarter, including about $25 million from the South African Knysna fires, $15 million from Colorado hailstorms, and $14 million from Peru flooding, according to Mr. Doucette, less than half the $124 million from second quarter 2016.

Second-quarter insurance underwriting profit was up more than $30 million over the year-ago period, Jonathan Zaffino, senior vice president and president of Everest Re’s North America insurance division, said on the call. “Underwriting excellence is paramount” in order to navigate a “competitive market.”

Markets, he said, “continued to feel pressure in the flat to single-digit range,” with a “tone of stabilization” across portfolios as the U.S. property market continued to seek bottom and commercial auto remained an outlier, achieving positive rates.

For the six months ended June 30, 2017, net income was $537.3 million, up 64.1% compared with the first six months of 2016. Revenue increased 12.9% to $3.02 billion.

In an online presentation accompanying the call, the year-to-date combined ratio was shown as 88.3%, just slightly worse than to 87.0% recorded for the whole of 2016.

“Everest continues to generate double-digit (returns on equity), while steadily growing its capital base,” Everest Re President and CEO Dominic J. Addesso, said in a statement.