Northwest Savings Bank Acquires Veracity Benefit Designs

WARREN, Pa., March 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Northwest Savings Bank has acquired Veracity Benefit Designs, Inc., an employee benefits firm. Veracity specializes in services to employer and employee groups, offering group medical, dental, life, accidental death and dismemberment, long term disability, travel accident, and vision plans. They also market retirement plans and offer employee benefit consulting. Veracity serves all of western New York , Rochester and northwestern Pennsylvania from locations in Jamestown, Buffalo, and Olean. The company has an extensive list of municipal, educational, non-profit, manufacturing, service, construction, and professional clients.

Veracity will operate as a subsidiary of Northwest Savings Bank. The former principals, Laura A. Otander and Bridgette Cassety, will remain with the company and run the day to day operations as President and Vice President, respectively.

Veracity was founded in 1999 and its consultative sales approach along with its strong focus on relationship management has allowed it to achieve double digit revenue growth for the last five years. In 2009, Buffalo Business First, a Buffalo area business publication, ranked the company number 24 on its list of Fast Track 50 firms, which honors the fifty fastest-growing independent and privately held companies in Western New York.

Gregory C. LaRocca, Executive Vice President of Northwest Savings Bank, commented, "Veracity brings another needed dimension to our financial services group, and we believe that strong synergies exist for the cross sale of insurance, investment, trust, retail and business deposit and lending products and services. Their corporate mission and values are very similar to ours and they emphasize customer relationships over transactions, just like Northwest. We also believe that the strong management team at Veracity gives us the opportunity to expand their services throughout the northwest footprint, in Western New York and beyond."

Founded in 1896, Northwest Savings Bank currently holds assets of $8 billion and operates 171 community-banking locations in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland and Florida.  Northwest Savings Bank is a full-service financial institution offering a complete line of retail and business banking products as well as investment management and trust services.  

SOURCE Northwest Savings Bank