Protection against lightning surge is an essential part of almost any electrical and electronic equipment today. Metal Oxide Varistor(MOV) is the single most important component in the overwhelming majority of the Surge Protective Devices(SPD) designated to provide such protection. In this paperr various types of MOV based SPD are inspected and experiments are carried out on the side effects of the low Measured Limiting Voltage(MLV) characteristics. Experiment results show that a lower MLV could cause a higher Temporary Overvoltage(TOV)-induced SPD failure rate in the field, and SPD are more likely to be victims rather than protectors in a TOV scenario. This means that from a safety perspective, the SPD should be specified with higher TOV withstand capability(UT) and faster SPD disconnector.