Skills and experience 

Jonathan Charak is Zurich North America’s Emerging Solutions Director since 2019, where he identifies emerging risks, evaluates potential solutions, and creates teams to develop products and services. He is a member of the North America Sustainability Underwriting Team since its inception in late 2021 with a focus on the development and implementation of Zurich North America’s sustainability underwriting strategy. Prior to this Jonathan held multiple roles within the Zurich organization as an actuary (including interim Chief Actuary for Zurich Australia and interim Chief Pricing Actuary for Zurich Canada) as well as non-actuarial roles (including as part of the Innovation team as well as an operations team for a business unit). 

 Mr. Charak has presented on various panels nationwide on emerging risk topics such as parametric insurance and autonomous vehicles. He further contributes to articles in national publications on emerging risk topics. 

 Industry volunteerism

Jonathan serves as vice-chair of the Autonomous Vehicle Task Force for the Casualty Actuarial Society since 2013. Further he continues to volunteer in multiple additional Casualty Actuarial Society including Learning Enhancement Process Mentor, University Liaison, and previously served on the Research Oversight Committee and multiple international committees. 

 Publications 

Jonathan has multiple actuarial industry publications on Autonomous Vehicles: 

• 2014 – Restating the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey for Automated Vehicles 

• 2018 – Automated Vehicle and the Insurance Industry – A Pathway to Safety: The Case for Collaboration  
• 2019 – An Update on the Outlook for Automated Vehicle Systems 
• 2020 – Communication of Technical Results to Senior Management 

Industry Awards 

Jonathan has received multiple industry awards, both within the actuarial field and the industry at large: 

• 2014 Casualty Actuarial Society New Member Award 
• 2016 Casualty Actuarial Society Above and Beyond Achievement Award 
• 2018 Casualty Actuarial Society Young Researcher Award 

• 2019 Business Insurance Breakout Award 
• 2019 Insurance Business America Young Guns Award 

Educational background 

Mr. Charak holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Illinois Wesleyan University with a double major in Mathematics and Biology. He is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society, Member of the American Academy of Actuaries, and a Certified Programs Leader.