"We're purchasing selected assets, but it's essentially the business," said Phil Perillo, chief financial officer for Quotesmith. "We did not buy the stock of the company." He added that Quotesmith.com currently derives approximately 70 percent of its revenues from life insurance.

Mr. Perillo said Life Quotes has about 80 employees, including "45 licensed agents who sell over the phone in every state." He noted that Quotesmith is making the purchase in order to "address a part of the market we weren't addressing very well?phone sales."

"We weren't handling phone sales very well," he continued. "So we decided to buy instead of build." He added that the company looked at its results for the previous year and concluded that "clearly we were missing a lot of sales because of an inability to communicate over the phone. We needed a staff to call on incomplete online orders, as well as for receiving calls" from the company's magazine advertisements and other channels, he said.

Founded in 1979 as a traditional life insurance agency, Life Quotes Inc. began pursuing direct response selling in a call center model in 1990, said Quotesmith. "The acquisition of Life Quotes adds a new operating unit with a strong track record of growth, profitability and recurring revenue," said Quotesmith.com Chief Executive Officer Robert Bland in a written statement. He added that the new acquisition is expected to contribute "$10 million of revenue on an annualized basis." The company had revenues of $10.4 million in 2003.

According to Quotesmith, the Life Quotes acquisition is expected to double the revenues of Quotesmith.com "and accelerate the company's path to profitability." The combined firm will serve a customer base of 200,000 policyholders.

Asked about possible duplication of facilities and/or personnel between the two organizations, Mr. Perillo stated: "We think they do something different [than we do], and we want them to do it. All the employees will have their same jobs the day after [the sale] closing." The Quotesmith announcement noted, however, that Ken Manley, Life Quotes founder and president, would "retire from day-to-day management of the company."

"We may have ideas for automation," added Mr. Perillo, "but at this point, we're not looking to pay for the deal with staff reductions." All Life Quotes facilities are being kept as well.

Mr. Perillo said the stock deal must first be approved by the shareholders in order for the purchase of the Life Quotes assets to become final. "We're hopeful it will be done in the latter part of April," he noted.

After completion of the stock sale, Quotesmith said it will have 7.3 million outstanding common shares, with Zions holding a 32 percent equity interest and one board seat.