The consolidated loss and LAE, expense and combined ratios for the years ended December 31, 2010 include the results from personal lines that were sold in 2010, which are included in the Investing, Financing and Corporate segment.
As noted above, we increased our provision for current accident year losses and LAE by $33.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2014. In recording the change in estimate of our loss and LAE reserve provision for the 2014 accident year, we considered the results of the enhanced actuarial and claim review and the fact that reported large claims were approaching estimated ultimate large losses sooner than originally expected. Of the $33.7 million increase, $29.9 million reflects an increase in management's best estimate of current year loss and LAE as of December 31, 2014 from those amounts recorded in the first nine months of 2014. This increase primarily affected the Professional Insurance underwriting operating segment, which represented $22.9 million of the total provision. The remaining $3.8 million is related to an increase in estimated losses in the Crop underwriting operating segment from higher-than-expected reports of crop losses that emerged in the fourth quarter.
For 2014, our net combined ratio was higher than our gross combined ratio by 1.5 points as a result of the cost of the reinsurance programs more than offsetting the benefits from ceded losses.
Specialty Products-Year ended December 31, 2013 versus year ended December 31, 2012
Our total common equity securities, convertible fixed maturity and other investments portfolio returned 18.3% for 2013, compared to 6.4% for 2012. Our total common equity securities portfolio returned 24.5% and 7.5% for 2013 and 2012, respectively. These were strong absolute results but underperformed the S&P 500 Index benchmark by 790 basis points and 850 basis points, respectively. During 2013, our total common equity securities portfolio had overweight exposure to the gold mining sector and underweight exposure to the consumer discretionary sector compared to the S&P 500 Index. Our convertible fixed maturity investments portfolio, whose returns typically lag in a strong equity market, returned 6.7% and 6.2% for 2013 and 2012, respectively. Other investments, which are composed principally of hedge funds and private equities, returned 8.3% and 4.8% for 2013 and 2012, respectively.
At issuance, Senior, or in the case of resecuritization, the underlying securities, were rated AAA by Standard & Poor's, Aaa by Moody's, or AAA by Fitch and were senior to non-AAA or non-Aaa securities.
investments, payments made to tax authorities, contributions to our operating subsidiaries, and holding company operating expenses.
Operating subsidiary level. The primary sources of cash for our operating subsidiaries are expected to be premium collections, net investment income, capital raising activities, contributions from our holding companies, and proceeds from sales and maturities of investments. The primary uses of cash are expected to be claim payments, policy acquisition and other underwriting expenses, interest payments on internal debt obligations, repurchases and retirements of internal debt obligations, purchases of investments, and distributions and tax sharing payments made to parent holding companies.
The 2012 Senior Notes were issued under indentures that contain restrictive covenants which, among other things, limit the ability of OneBeacon Ltd., OBH and their respective subsidiaries to consolidate, merge or transfer their properties and assets. The indentures do not contain any financial ratios or specified levels of net worth or liquidity to which OneBeacon Ltd. or OBH must adhere. As of December 31, 2014, OneBeacon Ltd. and OBH were in compliance with all of the covenants under the 2012 Senior Notes and anticipate they will continue to remain in compliance with these covenants for the foreseeable future. In addition, a failure by OneBeacon Ltd. or its subsidiaries to pay principal and interest on covered debt, where such failure results in the acceleration of at least $75 million of the principal amount of covered debt, could trigger the acceleration of the 2012 Senior Notes.