The U.S. property/casualty industry recorded an underwriting profit of $15.1 billion during the first six months of 2006, a 31.8% increase from the first six months of 2005, according to an exclusive A.M. Best special report excerpt in the Oct. 9 BestWeek.

Despite continued price softening, the improvement in the industry's results was attributable largely to a moderately light period of catastrophe losses, loss frequency trends and favorable loss-reserve development through the first six months of the year, according to the report.

For the first half of 2006, the industry's combined ratio, a key measure of underwriting profitability, improved to 92.0 from 93.8 reported in the first half of 2005. The industry's combined ratio for the second quarter of 2006 was 92.6, a modest deterioration of 1.2 points from 91.4 reported in the first quarter.

With solid underwriting results and investment income increasing at a modest pace, pretax operating income increased an impressive $5.4 billion, or 14.3%, to $43.2 billion in the first half of 2006 from $37.8 billion in the same period of 2005. Net income after taxes increased $2.0 billion, or 6.4%, to $33.1 billion.