UPDATE 1-Endurance Specialty posts Q3 profit

* Q3 net income $2.51/shr vs net loss $1.79/shr yr-ago

* Q3 oper EPS $2.41 vs $1.04 a year ago

* Net investment income nearly triples

* Net premiums earned fall 16 pct to $426.8 mln

Oct 29 (Reuters) - Insurer Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd (ENH.N) posted a profit for the third quarter, helped by higher investment income and lower expenses.

Net income was $153.8 million, or $2.51 per share, compared with a net loss of $99.4 million, or $1.79 a share, a year earlier.

Operating profit, a measure commonly used by insurance analysts as it excludes investment gains and losses, was $2.41 per share versus a loss of $1.04 a year ago.

Analysts on average had expected a profit of $1.58 a share, excluding items, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Quarterly net investment income nearly tripled to $71.6 million, while expenses fell 42 percent to $346.3 million, the provider of property and casualty insurance and reinsurance said.

Net premiums earned dropped 16 percent to about $426.8 million, the company said.

Shares of the Bermuda-based company closed at $36.94 Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Brenton Cordeiro in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)