Nationwide Courting Harleysville?

Ohio-based Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., is apparently in talks to purchase Pennsylvania-based rival Harleysville Group Inc. and its parent firm, reports Bloomberg.

Bloomberg said people with knowledge of the negotiations claim that the deal could be imminent, but details remain private because talks could still collapse, they said.

Joe Case, a spokesperson for Nationwide, the eighth-largest U.S. personal lines insurer, declined to comment. And Randy Buckwalter, long-time spokesperson for Harleysville, also declined to confirm or deny the report.

Harleysville was recognized as an Insurance Networking News2010 INNovators award winner. Stephen Byrne, VP, Agency & Field Automation, Harleysville Insurance, shared insights into his company's award-winning core systems project with INN in January.

In July, the company hired industry veteran Arne Herenstein as its CIO.

Harleysville Group had a market value of about $690 million as of yesterday, said Bloomberg. Harleysville Mutual Insurance Co., Its majority shareholder, is owned by its policyholders, in similar fashion as Nationwide.

Nationwide reported $14.4 billion in property-casualty premiums last year, down approximately 4 percent from 2009, according to the company's annual report. Harleysville, based in the city of the same name, reported sales in 2010 at the pooled company of approximately $1.1 billion.

Bloomberg reports that the combined Harleysville insurance companies had a statutory surplus, a measure of assets minus liabilities, of $1.3 billion as of June 30, according to an estimate from SNL Financial.

The deal, if implemented, would help Nationwide increase business in Harleysville’s territories of the Midwest and Eastern United States.

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