In this Inside RGA Q&A, Tonya Blackmore, Senior Vice President, Business Engagement & Global Digital Underwriting, talks about the industry’s dramatic advances in technology, her role leading an InsurTech startup, and her favorite mountain biking trails in British Columbia.
I’ve had a very interesting and fulfilling career path. I began working for a Canadian life insurer leading claims, loans, titles, policy administration, and customer service. An opportunity came up in their reinsurance division and I was intrigued to learn a new segment that I knew nothing about. When I joined the reinsurance division, I dove into learning the business and over the years my role expanded to include leading the company’s operations and IT departments.
In 2015, I transitioned from corporate reinsurance to Logiq3 Group, where I partnered with RGA’s Chris Murumets to become CEO of an InsurTech startup called Apexa. Apexa was a company focused on solving an industry problem in agent distribution compliance. In 2018, RGAX acquired Logiq3 Group, and that is how I landed at RGA.
In my current Global Technology role leading Business Engagement, we enable our global business teams with technical solutions to support their business needs.
RGA has a wonderful culture and is very aligned with my personal values. I’m surrounded by dedicated, hardworking, and collaborative colleagues with great integrity. I like the ambitious growth of RGA combined with our humble, community-focused attitude. As a manager, I enjoy helping others achieve their career goals and reach their full potential.
The greatest change I’ve seen in the industry is the use of technology to advance life insurance and customer engagement. Early in my career we lobbied for a customer portal where clients could update their address and see their policy details. Remarkably, this basic idea encountered resistance. There was a view that customer engagement was not a worthwhile investment once a client purchased life insurance.
Now customer engagement is top of mind and viewed as a strategic and competitive imperative. Our industry is also pursuing higher rates of automation across the process value chain, from new business and underwriting and all the way to claims processing. Automation in all its forms leads to greater efficiencies for our clients and helps us achieve our purpose of providing financial protection to all.
Being a startup CEO has many challenges – with a few triumphs along the way. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit, which attracted me to the Apexa opportunity. The thought of building something ground up and figuring out the business plan, funding, development, and launch was a challenge I was ready to conquer.
Apexa was bootstrapped by Logiq3 and we started with two employees. In true startup style, I had to wear many hats and was elbows-deep into the pressing needs of the business, day in and day out. When you’re leading a startup, you have to hustle because everything feels urgent and critical. I also felt the daily pressure of being responsible for other people’s careers. If Apexa didn’t succeed, many hardworking, quality people who believed in our vision would be out of a job. That made me hyper focused on success.
The triumphs were celebrating the small and big wins along the way, and the reality is, many days those triumphs were small, like sharing a laugh with the team or hitting a milestone in product development. The small successes were actually more meaningful than the one day we went live because we had accomplished so much in the years leading up to that moment.
My way to decompress is to spend time in nature. I’m an avid mountain biker, hiker, and skier. Every chance I have to jump on my bike and tackle a challenging climb or gnarly descent, I will do it. I live in Squamish, British Columbia, which is a world class mountain biking destination. My favorite local trail is “Somewhere Over There,” a Black Diamond downhill track with rock slabs, bridges, and incredible views of the Garibaldi Range mountains. I have a very loving and supportive family so the time I get to spend with my loved ones, indoors or outdoors, is absolute gold.
Above: Tonya cruises along a mountain bike trail in British Columbia.
