Jackson Financial Inc.

We highlight several trends and uncertainties below that we believe could materially affect our future business performance, including our results of operations, investments, cash flows, and capital and liquidity position.

Macroeconomic and Financial Market Conditions

Our business and results of operations are affected by macroeconomic factors. See “Risks to Conditions in Global Financial Markets and the Economy” in Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors of our 2025 Annual Report for more information.

Government actions, including tariffs, sanctions or other barriers to international trade, restructuring of government services, responses to future pandemics, civil unrest, and geographic conflicts, and the effects that these or other government events could have on levels of U.S. economic activity, could also impact our business through any of their individual impacts on consumers’ behavior or on financial markets.

In the short- to medium-term, increased volatility could pressure sales and reduce demand for our products as consumers consider purchasing alternative products to meet their objectives. Our financial performance can be adversely affected by market volatility and equity market declines if the account values of our annuities against which we assess fees fluctuate, hedging costs increase, or revenues decline due to reduced sales and increased outflows.

Equity Market Environment

Our financial performance is impacted by equity market performance.

•Variable Annuity Fees: Fees we earn that are not associated with guaranteed benefits are mainly based on the account value, which increases as equity market levels increase.

•Index Interest Crediting on RILA and FIA Contracts: RILA and FIA products feature a crediting rate formulaically linked to the performance of an external equity index. The interest credited to the contract increases as equity market levels increase.

•Hedge Effectiveness in Face of Volatility: Our hedges could be less effective in periods of large directional movements, or we could experience more frequent or more costly rebalancing in periods of high volatility. This could lead to adverse performance versus our hedge targets and increased hedging costs.

•Basis Risk: We are exposed to basis risk, which results from our inability to purchase or sell hedge assets whose performance fully correlates to the performance of the funds into which customers allocate their assets. We make available to customers funds where we believe we can transact in sufficiently correlated hedge assets, yet we anticipate some variance in the performance of our hedge assets relative to customer funds. This variance may result in our hedge assets outperforming or underperforming the customer assets they are intended to match. This variance may be exacerbated during periods of high volatility, leading to a mismatch in our hedge results relative to our hedge targets, and potentially an adverse effect on our U.S. GAAP results.

Interest Rate Environment

The interest rate environment has affected, and will continue to affect, our business and financial performance for the following reasons:

•Hedge Effec tiveness in Face of Volatility: Our hedges could be less effective in periods of large directional interest rate movements, or we could experience more frequent or more costly rebalancing in periods of high interest rate volatility. This could lead to adverse performance versus our hedge targets and increased hedging costs.

•Adverse Reactions to Pricing Changes: Pricing actions we take in response to decreasing interest rates may reduce the attractiveness of crediting rates, guaranteed benefits, and other product features. This in turn may lead to reduced sales volumes.

•Impact of Low Interest Rates: Low interest rate environments could also subject us to increased hedging costs or an increase in the amount of regulatory reserves that our insurance subsidiaries are required to hold for optional guaranteed benefits, decreasing regulatory surplus, which would adversely affect our insurance subsidiaries' ability to pay dividends. In addition, low interest rates could also increase the perceived value of optional guaranteed benefit features to our customers, which in turn could lead to a higher utilization of withdrawal or annuitization features of annuity policies and higher persistency of those products over time.

•Minimum Interest Crediting Rates: Some of our annuities have guaranteed minimum interest crediting rates (“GMICRs”) that limit our ability to reduce crediting rates. If earnings on our investment portfolio decline, those GMICRs may result in net investment spread compression that negatively impacts earnings. Many of our annuities have GMICRs that reset at contractually specified times after issue, subject to a contractually specified minimum. In a rising interest rate environment, these GMICRs can increase over time. Conversely, in a falling interest rate environment, the interest crediting rate will eventually decrease; however, there may be a lag between interest rate movements and the GMICR reset, temporarily limiting our ability to lower crediting rates. When policies have comparatively high GMICRs, in a subsequent low interest rate environment more customers are expected to hold on to their policies, which may result in lower lapses than previously expected.

•Investment Activity: The level of interest rates and the shape of the yield curve impact investment-related activity, including investment income returns, net investment spread results, new money rates, mortgage loan prepayments, and bond redemptions.

•Impact of Rising Interest Rates:

•Disintermediation Risk: Interest rate increases also expose us to disintermediation risk, where higher rates make currently sold fixed annuity products more attractive while simultaneously reducing the market value of assets backing our liabilities. This creates an incentive for our customers to lapse their products in an environment where selling assets causes us to realize losses.

•Decreased Bond Fund Valuations: Additionally, rising interest rates decrease the value of bond funds held by variable annuity clients. This in turn decreases the volume of fees we collect based on the account value and increases the value of any guaranteed benefits.

•Increased Cash Surrender Values: Increasing interest rates also increase the cash surrender values of some of our RILAs. This increases the amount of regulatory reserves that our insurance subsidiaries are required to hold, decreasing regulatory surplus, which could adversely affect our insurance subsidiaries' ability to pay dividends.

Credit Market Environment

Conditions in fixed income markets impact our financial performance:

•Impact of Widening/Tightening Credit Spreads: As credit spreads widen, the fair value of our existing investment portfolio generally decreases, although we generally expect the widening spreads to increase the yield on new fixed income investments. Conversely, as credit spreads tighten, the fair value of our existing investment portfolio generally increases, and the yield available on new investment purchases decreases. While changing credit spreads impact the fair value of our investment portfolio, this revaluation is generally reflected in our accumulated other comprehensive income ("AOCI"). The revaluation will impact net income in the cases of realized gains or losses from the sale of securities, changes in fair value of trading securities or securities carried at fair value under the fair value election, or potential changes in the allowance for credit loss ("ACL"). In addition, if credit conditions deteriorate due to a recession or other negative credit events in capital markets, we could experience an increase in defaults and other-than-temporary-impairments (“OTTI”).

Additionally, widening credit spreads decrease the value of bond funds held by variable annuity clients. This in turn decreases the volume of fees we collect based on the account value and increases the value of any guaranteed benefits.

•Impact on Regulatory Capital: OTTI in our underlying investments would reduce our insurance company subsidiaries' regulatory capital. Also, shifts in the credit quality or credit rating downgrades of our investments as a result of stressed credit conditions may impact the level of regulatory required capital for our insurance company subsidiaries. As such, significant credit rating downgrades along with elevated defaults and OTTI losses would negatively impact our RBC ratio, which could impact available dividends from our insurance subsidiaries.

Consumer Behavior

We believe that many retirees look to tax-efficient savings products as a tool for addressing their unmet need for retirement planning. We believe our products are well-positioned to meet this increasing consumer demand. However, consumer behavior may be impacted by increased economic uncertainty, unemployment rates, inflation rates, declining equity markets, significant changes in interest rates and increased volatility of financial markets. In recent years, we have introduced or reintroduced products, such as RILA or fixed annuities, to better address changes in consumer demand and targeted distribution channels that meet changes in consumer preferences.

Demographics

We expect demographic trends in the U.S. population, in particular the increase in the number of retirement age individuals, to generate significant demand for our products. In addition, the potential risk to government social safety net programs and shifting of responsibility for retirement planning and financial security from employers and other institutions to employees, highlight the need for individuals to plan for their long-term financial security and will create additional opportunities to generate sustained demand for our products. We believe we are well-positioned to capture the increased demand generated by these demographic trends.

Regulatory Policy

We operate in a highly regulated industry. Our insurance company subsidiaries are regulated primarily at the state level, with some policies and products also subject to federal regulation. New federal and state regulations could impact our business model, as described below and in Part I. Business - Regulation in our 2025 Annual Report. Our ability to respond to changes in regulation and other legislative activity is critical to our long-term financial performance. The following items could materially impact our business:

Legislative Reforms

In recent years, Congress approved legislation beneficial to our business model. The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (the "SECURE Act"), approved by Congress on December 20, 2019, provides individuals with greater access to retirement products. Namely, it made it easier for 401(k) programs to offer annuities as an investment option by, among other things, creating a statutory safe harbor in ERISA for a retirement plan’s selection of an annuity provider. On December 29, 2022, Congress signed into law the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (“SECURE 2.0”). SECURE 2.0 expands automatic enrollment programs, increases the age for required minimum distributions, and eliminates age requirements for traditional IRA contributions. These changes are intended to expand and increase Americans’ retirement savings.

Tax Laws

Our annuities offer investors the opportunity to benefit from tax deferrals. If U.S. tax laws change such that our annuities no longer offer tax-deferred advantages, demand for our products could materially decrease.

Changes to individual income tax rates and other elements of tax policy can make the tax deferral aspects of our products more or less attractive to consumers, affecting demand for our products.