Insurance firms may get U.S. capital under bailout plan

Uncle Sam to the rescue, yet again.

Stocks of major insurance firms surged today after the Wall Street Journal reported that the industry may be eligible for capital infusions from the Treasury, as part of the $700-billion financial system bailout program.

"Treasury wants insurance companies to participate in its program, and is considering taking equity stakes in certain firms, according to people familiar with the matter," the Journal said.

That $700 billion could go awfully fast, folks.

Among large insurance companies, Prudential Financial jumped $2.01 to $34.46 today, MetLife Inc. rose $1.96 to $29.80, Aflac surged $2.56 to $38.87 and Hartford Financial Services Group gained $3.39 to $24.30.

Comments

[Shash Nahalin]

They don't seem to want any help, so what up with this?
“Who in the insurance business is asking the Treasury for money?” Andrew J. Barile, an industry consultant, said. “Allstate certainly doesn’t need it. State Farm doesn’t need it. And these are the biggest companies in our country.”

But no other insurance company is thought to have anywhere near the exposure to credit-default swaps that A.I.G. had.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/business/25bailout.html?ref=business

[Mr.Bilko]

Shash,
It appears that the Feds are giving money away to companies that do not need funds in order to hide from the public the companies that are in trouble. Companies like JP Morgan/Chase are taking their $25B from the gov't but have no intention of loaning the money to help ease the credit crunch. Instead, JP Morgan/Chase is going to tighten credit even further, reduce the number of loans they make and use their $25B from the gov't to pursue more acquisitions. see: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/business/25nocera.html?8dpc=&_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

[LA / Michael]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting a little confused about exactly who is getting what from the Feds. Over 1-trillion of our money and what are the terms being set as far as reimbursement, performance, accountability. Please..... I'm beginning to feel like these were grants, in the form of disaster relief.

Does anyone know of a simple web location, that is monitoring all of these disbursements, possibly in alphabetical order? It's the least our government could do so that we "The People" can keep track of "Our" money.