Insure.com Sells Brand Name for $16 Million

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October 12, 2009 Monday 02:53 PM EST

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Insure.com Sells Brand Name for $16 Million

Meg Green

DARIEN, Ill.

Insure.com Inc. said it has sold its Insure.com brand name and related media assets for $16 million in cash to QuinStreet Inc.

QuinStreet, Foster City, Calif., is an online media and marketing company that was founded in April 1999.

The company Insure.com Inc. said it would change its corporate name to Life Quotes Inc. and will continue its business under its Life Quotes and Consumer Insurance Guide brand names.

The company will retain all of its remaining balance sheet assets, national brokerage contracts with 25 leading life insurance companies, 50 fully licensed insurance agents, call center operations, customer and prospect lists, and nearly all of its current inbound affiliate and traffic partnerships.

In December 2001, the company acquired the Insure.com name and Web site for $1.6 million.

Revenue from its asset sale transaction will be recorded as an extraordinary, one-time gain in the fourth quarter of 2009. The company does not anticipate paying any federal income taxes on this gain because it has a current federal tax loss carry forward of $49 million.

"We have sold our Insure.com name and specified Web site content in a significant cash transaction that we think is in the best long-term interest of our shareholders," Robert Bland, chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. "This transaction has other benefits to our shareholders and employees in that it will allow us to focus on our brokerage operation and insurance marketing businesses."

Attempts to reach the company for additional comment were not immediately successful.

Bland said as a result of this transaction, Insure.com is projecting a 10% to 15% drop in revenues and increased marketing expenses for the next two to six quarters as the company works to rebuild under a new brand name, and move from a content-based to a transaction-based site.

In July, the company posted a net loss of $240,000 down from a net profit of $57,000 for the same quarter a year ago, according to the company's Web site.

Insure.com was originally founded in 1984 as Quotesmith Corp. Visitors to the company's Web site, www.insure.com, have been able to obtain free, instant car insurance quotes, instant life insurance quotes, home, business and health insurance quotes from leading insurers and have the freedom to buy online or by phone from any company shown.

Insure.com is also home to hundreds of original articles on consumer insurance topics and provides free insurance decision-making tools, the company said.

Insure.com generates revenues from receipt of industry-standard commissions, including back-end bonus commissions and volume-based contingent bonus commissions that are paid by participating insurance companies.

Shares of the company's common stock trade (NASDAQ: NSUR) were trading at $2.93 a share midday Oct. 12, down 0.34% from the previous close.

(By Meg Green, senior associate editor, BestWeek: [email protected])

October 13, 2009