The marine liability, offshore energy and cargo products and related loss exposures are similar in nature to that described for marine business above. Specie insurance provides property coverage for jewelry, fine art, vault and cash in transit risks. Claims tend to be from theft or damage, quick to report and, in most cases, quick to settle. Marine reinsurance is a diversified global book of reinsurance, the majority of which consists of excess-of-loss reinsurance policies for which claims activity tends to be large and infrequent with loss development somewhat longer than for such products written on a direct basis. Marine reinsurance reinsures liability, cargo, hull and offshore energy exposures that are similar in nature to the marine business described above.
For equity securities, the Company also considers its intent to hold securities as part of the process of evaluating whether a decline in fair value represents an other-than-temporary decline in value. For fixed maturity securities, the Company considers its intent to sell a security and whether it is more likely than not that the Company will be required to sell a security before the anticipated recovery as part of the process of evaluating whether a security’s unrealized loss represents an other-than-temporary decline. The Company’s ability to hold such securities is supported by sufficient cash flow from its operations and from maturities within its investment portfolio in order to meet its claims payment and other disbursement obligations arising from its underwriting operations without selling such investments. With respect to securities where the decline in value is determined to be temporary and the security’s value is not written down, a subsequent decision may be made to sell that security and realize a loss. Subsequent decisions on security sales are made within the context of overall risk monitoring, changing information and market conditions.
The following table presents our consolidated underwriting results and provides a reconciliation of our underwriting profit or loss to GAAP net income or loss for the years ended December 31, 2012, 2011 and 2010:
Our Marine division saw increases in the average renewal premium rates in our Inland Marine and Lloyd’s lines of approximately 7.3% and 0.9%, respectively, for the year ended December 31, 2011 compared to the same period in 2010. U.S. Marine premiums rates decreased 0.3% while U.K. Branch Marine premiums rates increased 1.9% for the year ended December 31, 2011 compared to the same period in 2010. For our Energy and Engineering and Primary Casualty lines we experienced an average renewal premium rate increases of approximately 4.2% and 7.4% for the year ended December 31, 2011 compared to the same period in 2010, which was offset by a decline in our Excess Casualty lines of 1.2%, respectively. The Insurance Companies and Lloyd’s Professional Liability division overall experienced approximately a 1.5% decrease in average renewal premium rates for the year ended December 31, 2011 compared to 2010.
The decrease in total investment income before investment expenses for all years presented was primarily due to lower investment yields and shorter portfolio duration. The annualized pre-tax investment yield, excluding net realized gains and losses and net other-than-temporary impairment (“OTTI”) losses recognized in earnings, was 2.4%, 3.0% and 3.5% for the years ended December 31, 2012, 2011 and 2010, respectively. The portfolio duration was 3.6 years for both the years ended December 31, 2012 and 2011, and was 4.4 years for the year ended December 31, 2010.
• $16.5 million in our Specialty run-off books of business, including $13.3 million in our personal umbrella lines across multiple underwriting years where loss activity has exceeded our expectations and $2.0 million of adverse development in our Liquor business due to reported claim activity.
• The directors and officers liability book of business had $15.7 million of adverse development, which was primarily attributable to a severity study of our open claims. This study showed our IBNR to be significantly deficient if current trends continued and we raised our loss estimates for underwriting years 2002 to 2009. This was partially offset by $1.4 million of favorable development on a run-off lawyers book of business written from London where we saw favorable settlements of outstanding claims and $0.7 million of favorable development on other lawyers business mostly due to a favorable claim reserve settlement.
• Prior period net reserve deficiencies of $12.1 million largely attributable to significant emergence in our Professional liability business, partially offset by redundancies from our Property Casualty business.
The Insurance Companies’ Professional Liability gross written premiums for the year ended December 31, 2011 decreased by 11.7% to $114.6 million compared to prior year primarily due to the reduction in our D&O business as we have implemented a revised underwriting strategy exiting areas that have been identified as having greater volatility and shifted our public company book by emphasizing higher excess layers. Our Noodle business, reported within Management liability in the table above, decreased by 97.4% from the prior year due to the termination of the agency relationship in 2010. The decreases were offset by the E&O business, which increased 37.6% from the prior year due to the success of the real estate product which was established in the third quarter of 2011 and wrote $8.9 million in gross written premium for the year ended December 31, 2011. In addition, the average 2011 Professional Liability renewal rate declined 1.4% from 2010.
Our Lloyd’s Operations combined ratio for the year ended December 31, 2011 was 100.8% compared to 99.8% for the same period in 2010. Our Lloyd’s Operations pre-tax underwriting profit decreased by $2.1 million to a $1.7 million pre-tax underwriting loss for the year ended December 31, 2011 compared to $0.4 million of underwriting profit for the same period in 2010. Our Lloyd’s Operations pre-tax underwriting loss in 2011 includes:
Net cash used in investing activities was $179.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2012 as compared to net cash provided by investing activities of $66.0 million for the same period in 2011 and net cash used in investing activities of $36.5 million for the same period in 2010. Fluctuations in cash provided by, or used in, investing activities is primarily due to the ongoing management of our investment portfolio.
The following table sets forth our U.S. Treasury bonds, agency bonds, and foreign government bonds as of December 31, 2012 and 2011: