PRUDENTIAL FINANCIAL INC

Application of Critical Accounting Estimates

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP requires the application of accounting policies that often involve a significant degree of judgment. Management, on an ongoing basis, reviews the estimates and assumptions used in the preparation of the Company’s financial statements. If management determines that modifications to assumptions and estimates are appropriate given current facts and circumstances, the Company’s results of operations and financial position as reported in the Unaudited Interim Consolidated Financial Statements could change significantly.

Management believes the accounting policies relating to the following areas are most dependent on the application of estimates and assumptions and require management’s most difficult, subjective, or complex judgments:

•Insurance liabilities;

•Goodwill;

•Valuation of investments including derivatives, measurement of allowance for credit losses, and recognition of other-than-temporary impairments (“OTTI”);

•Pension and other postretirement benefits;

•Taxes on income; and

•Reserves for contingencies, including reserves for losses in connection with unresolved legal matters.

Market Performance - Equity and Interest Rate Assumptions

The liability for future policy benefits for certain of our universal life type products includes quarterly adjustments for the impact of changes to our estimate of future rates of returns on investments to reflect actual fund performance and market conditions. A portion of the returns on investments for our variable life contracts are dependent upon the total rate of return on assets held in separate account investment options. This rate of return influences the fees we earn and expected claims to be paid on variable life contracts, as well as other sources of profit. Returns that are higher than our expectations for a given period produce higher than expected account balances, which increase the future fees we expect to earn on variable life contracts and decrease expected claims to be paid on variable life contracts. The opposite occurs when returns are lower than our expectations.

The weighted average rate of return assumptions used in developing estimated market returns consider many factors specific to each product type, including asset durations, asset allocations and other factors. With regard to equity market assumptions, the near-term future rate of return assumption used in evaluating liabilities for future policy benefits for certain of our products, primarily our domestic and international variable life insurance products, is generally updated each quarter and is derived using a reversion to the mean approach, a common industry practice. Under this approach, we consider historical equity returns and adjust projected equity returns over an initial future period of five years (the “near-term”) so that equity returns converge to the long-term expected rate of return. If the near-term projected future rate of return is greater than our near-term maximum future rate of return of 15.0%, we use our maximum future rate of return. If the near-term projected future rate of return is lower than our near-term minimum future rate of return of 0%, we use our minimum future rate of return. As of June 30, 2024, our domestic variable life insurance businesses assume an 8.0% long-term equity expected rate of return and a 3.2% near-term mean reversion equity expected rate of return, and our international variable life insurance business assumes a 5.0% long-term equity expected rate of return and a 0% near-term mean reversion equity expected rate of return.

With regard to interest rate assumptions used in evaluating liabilities for future policy benefits for certain of our products, we update the long-term and near-term future rates used to project fixed income returns annually and quarterly, respectively. As a result of our 2024 annual reviews and update of assumptions and other refinements, we increased our long-term expectation of both the 10-year U.S. Treasury rate and 10-year Japanese Government Bond yield by 25 basis points, and now grade to rates of 3.50% and 1.25%, respectively, over ten years. As part of our quarterly market experience updates, we update our near-term projections of interest rates to reflect changes in current rates.

For further discussion of impacts that could result from changes in these key estimates and assumptions, see “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Accounting Policies and Pronouncements—Application of Critical Accounting Estimates” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023.

Adoption of New Accounting Pronouncements

See Note 2 to the Unaudited Interim Consolidated Financial Statements for accounting pronouncements issued but not yet adopted and newly adopted accounting pronouncements.