Bloodsucking Insurers get TARP Funds

May 15 (Bloomberg) -- Prudential Financial Inc. and Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. are among six insurers granted access to U.S. aid as the government moves to shore up an industry battered by investment losses.

Hartford won preliminary approval for $3.4 billion in capital from the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Connecticut-based insurer said yesterday in a statement. Prudential, Allstate Corp., Principal Financial Group Inc. and Ameriprise Financial Inc. also are eligible for funds, said Andrew Williams, a spokesman for the Treasury. Lincoln National Corp. said it may receive $2.5 billion.

Life insurers have clamored for six months to get into a program that the nation’s biggest banks are trying to flee to avoid government restrictions. Insurers need the money to quell doubts about whether they can pay claims and retirement stipends after falling stock and bond markets depleted capital.

“If you had some of these companies, the bigger ones like Hartford, go into a spiral, that would just cause another round of panic,” said Robert Haines, a New York-based analyst at CreditSights Inc. “I don’t like the idea of the government getting involved with these companies. You’re making to an extent a deal with the devil, but your options are really limited at this point.”

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And she died in November 2007. They've been giving my Dad the runaround for 18 months.