Shares of insurer Genworth Financial Inc. (GNW) and other life insurers surged Friday, after slumping in previous days, as insurance stocks in general edged upward.

Shares of Genworth closed up 13.6%. Other life insurers also rose, with Hartford Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (HIG) up 4.6%, Lincoln National Corp. (LNC) up 1.1% and MetLife Inc. (MET) up 1.4% amid a generally higher market for insurers Friday.

Genworth said Friday that its application for a savings-and-loan charter is still being processed by the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision. Genworth applied for the charter in November in order to qualify for the Treasury Department's capital purchase program.

Hartford, Lincoln National and Phoenix Cos. Inc. (PNX) all applied for the charter around the same time as Genworth and they have already received approval, but no insurers have yet received capital through the program.

Phoenix Cos. spokeswoman Alice Ericson said via email that receiving the approval "is a step that allows us to continue exploring the opportunities presented in the Treasury Department's programs, but we have not yet decided the ultimate course we will take."

As of Jan. 13, all of the original $350 billion in the first round of Troubled Asset Relief Program funds had been allocated, but of the $250 billion of that amount that was allocated to the capital purchase program, nearly $60 billion remained to be awarded to financial institutions, according to the Treasury Department's Web site. The latest company to receive capital from Treasury is Chrysler Financial, which received $1.5 billion on Friday to finance the extension of consumer auto loans.

Rock Holdings Inc., owner of Quicken Loans Inc., and mortgage lender PHH Corp. (PHH) both applied for a thrift banking charter at about the same time as Genworth.

Quicken Loans spokeswoman Elizabeth Jones said via email Friday that Rock Holdings' thrift charter application is still pending, and that the company applied for that status to "potentially acquire a thrift." The company "is not pursuing TARP at the moment," Jones said. A spokeswoman for PHH did not return a phone call.

In a Friday research note, UBS analyst Andrew Kligerman said that some put low odds on life insurers ever receiving the funds, but others think odds are good "in part for political reasons and (because) insurers are large investors/lenders."

Kligerman also said that considerations by insurance regulators to reduce life insurer capital requirements are still "up in the air" and that insurers need to look beyond both potential sources of capital relief.

Insurers have sought both in order to increase the amount of capital they have on hand to pay potential claims and meet regulatory and rating-agency capital requirements.

-By Lavonne Kuykendall, Dow Jones Newswires; (312) 750 4141; lavonne.kuykendall@dowjones.com

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