NEW YORK (AFP) - Six major American insurance companies have received preliminary approval to receive billions of dollars in government bailout funds, a Treasury official and the the firms said.

A Treasury spokesman named the six as Prudential, Lincoln National, Allstate, Principal Financial, Hartford Financial and Ameriprise.

"These life insurers met the requirements for the Capital Purchase Program because of their bank holding company status and each applied for CPP (Capital Purchase Program) capital investments by the deadline of November 14, 2008," the spokesman told AFP late Thursday.

He added that the six were among hundreds of financial institutions "that will be reviewed and funded as appropriate on a rolling basis."

Details of the amounts set aside for the insurers were not immediately available but Hartford Financial said in a separate statement that it had been approved for up to 3.4 billion US dollars.

"Applying for participation in the CPP was a prudent step for The Hartford, particularly given the continued economic uncertainty," said Hartford chairman and chief executive Ramani Ayer.

"These funds would further fortify our capital resources and provide us with additional financial flexibility during one of the most volatile market climates in our nation's history."

Launched last year, the CPP directly infuses capital into viable banks in a bid to stabilize the financial system and enable banks to continue to provide credit to businesses and consumers.

Through the CPP, the Treasury has already injected some 200 billion US dollars in capital into nearly 580 banks. The total program commitment is up to 250 billion US dollars.

It is all part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a 700-billion-US-dollar financial bailout fund that has disbursed moneys to American Express and troubled automakers General Motors and Chrysler.

The US government has pumped nearly 180 billion US dollars into insurance titan American International Group (AIG), the largest single recipient of federal bailout money, giving the government a major stake in the group.

The bailed-out insurer, once the world's largest, lost another 4.35 billion US dollars in the first quarter but made progress in unwinding its Financial Products division, a unit blamed in exacerbating the global financial crisis.

AIG was deemed to be too big to fail, given the complex ties it built with financial institutions worldwide through so-called credit default swaps linked to the tanking property market.

These complex financial products were traded in an opaque market virtually devoid of regulation.

Top US life insurer MetLife was part of 19 financial institutions that underwent "stress tests" by US federal regulators to determine their resistance to a deeper economic slump, but the group was deemed to have enough capital.