Where Things Are Headed After 1Q Earnings – Life Insurance Sector Update

Research evidence excerpt

Where Things Are Headed After 1Q Earnings – Life Insurance Sector Update

Financials | Global Insurance - Life

May 20, 2026

Thomas Gallagher, CFA Where Things Are Headed After 1Q

212-446-9439

Thomas.Gallagher@EvercoreISI.com Earnings – Life Insurance Sector Update

David Motemaden, CFA After a generally decent earnings season overall without many major

212-497-0832 surprises, which followed plenty of pre-earnings drama (EQH / CRBG

David.Motemaden@evercoreisi.com merger, VOYA activist, and PRU extension of POJ sales suspension),

Nicolas Lu we highlight some of the key themes and issues that should drive stock

212-497-0812 performance over the balance of 2026:

Nicolas.Lu@evercoreisi.com

Peter Knudsen 1. Mixed Investment Performance to Continue – Alt portfolio returns,

212-708-8497 after showing some signs of recovery over the last year, may still

Peter.Knudsen@evercoreisi.com struggle to achieve target returns over the balance of 2026

considering: a) the biggest alt managers’ 1Q returns (much of life

co performance on a 3-mo lag); b) the recent move higher in

interest rates; and c) some ongoing challenges in CRE. While

private credit concerns have received the most recent focus, our

analysis on this topic across the group leads us to believe that this

is unlikely to become a big source of losses for the sector

2. On fundamentals, 1Q26 turned out to be one of the best 1Q’s for

mortality seen in some time for the sector. This was balanced out

by weakness in disability, claims of irrational competition in the

retail annuity space (claim made by APO), and sluggish spreads

and flows in the institutional spread business. 401k trends actually

held up okay this quarter, while international was generally a bright

spot (outside of PRU’s ongoing sales suspension in Japan).

3.