Legal expenses insurer DAS has taken a step towards offering online legal services after buying web-based Everything Legal.

The insurer, which has long held ambitions to become an alternative business structure (ABS), announced the acquisition of the Bristol-based company this week.

Everything Legal, founded in 2007, employs 30 staff to refer people in need of legal advice. It also owns legal advice website Law on the Web, which attracts more than a million visitors a year to its 9,000 pages of content. DAS UK is part of Munich-based DAS, which is in turn part of the ERGO Group, Germany’s second-largest insurer.

Earlier this year, DAS became one of the first parties to declare an interest in ABSs, aiming to convert some of the 125,000 annual calls to its advice line into fee-earning work through one of its panel firms.

Paul Asplin, chief executive of DAS UK, said the acquisition will enable the insurer to ‘take a giant leap forward’ in offering legal services online and put it ‘at the forefront’ of the developing legal market.