Top domain name sales may have seen a slump this year but there have been some that fetched nice round sums. Toys.com was sold for $5.1 million, Candy.com for a round $3 million but the latest transaction puts these to shame as Insure.com has been sold for $16 million, one of the biggest figures in domain name sales history.

It could be argued that this wasn't a pure domain name sale as Insure.com, a publicly traded company that currently operates the website, sold the domain and the brand name for the huge sum but will retain all other assets and will continue to do business under the Life Quotes and Consumer Insurance Guide brand names. But considering that all that has been sold is the URL and the trademark and that previous transactions, like Toys.com, also had businesses using the URL before the sale, this is pretty much a domain name sale.

"We have sold our Insure.com name and specified website content in a significant cash transaction that we think is in the best long-term interest of our shareholders," Robert Bland, chairman and CEO of Insure.com, said. "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."

However, as expected the transaction will have an impact on the company's bottom line. "As a result of this transaction, we are projecting reduced revenues of approximately 10-15 percent with increased marketing expenses for the next 2-6 quarters as we rebuild under a new brand name and move from a content-based website to a transaction-based website," Bland added.

The domain was bought by QuinStreet, a marketing company that also bought Internet.com along with other assets for $18 million in August. Insure.com was purchased in 2001 for just $1.6 million, making for quite a return on investment for the company, though whether this was a good decision in the long term remains to be seen.