MetLife Has Won 'Too-Big-To-Fail' Ruling; Insurance Sector Moving Higher

Insurance stocks are edging higher after Metlife Inc MET has won 'Too-Big-To-Fail' ruling, according to a report on Bloomberg. Shares of the insurer climbed as much as 8 percent after the ruling. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-30/metlife-wins-court-ruling-removing-fsoc-s-too-big-to-fail-tag-imeyio6z?cmpid=yhoo.headline The MetLife news send shares of insurance companies higher. MetLife is currently up 4.3 percent at $44.31 AIG rose 1.78 percent at $54.34 Prudential gained 2.87 percent to $73.57 Lincoln National Corporation LNC rose 1.84 percent to $40.31 AFLAC Incorporated AFL edged up 1.06 percent at $63.85 Bloomberg reported that a federal judge in Washington struck down the designation, rejecting the Financial Stability Oversight Council's rationale for classifying the company as a systemically important financial institution. The SIFI (Systemically Important Financial Institution) status would've put America's biggest life insurer under tougher government scrutiny and forced it to put more money in reserves, the report added. American International Group Inc AIG and Prudential Financial Inc PRU are the other insurers having the SIFI status. In January, MetLife announced its plans to separate a substantial portion of its U.S. Retail segment, citing regulatory environment. http://global.metlife.com/Press-room/index.html?compID=110691 At that time, Steven Kandarian, MetLife chairman, president and CEO, said: "Currently, U.S. Retail is part of a Systemically Important Financial Institution (SIFI) and risks higher capital requirements that could put it at a significant competitive disadvantage. Even though we are appealing our SIFI designation in court and do not believe any part of MetLife is systemic, this risk of increased capital requirements contributed to our decision to pursue the separation of the business."