Served as a director
Merqavni Health Assurance
Statutory board; executive director
April 2021–present
Participates in collective board decisions alongside the CEO appointment; one current executive seat and no independence claim.
Arvind Qevrlani · Chief Executive Officer · India
Challenge the commitment without becoming another chief executive
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Merqavni Health Assurance
Invited operating and expansion reviews as COO
April 2014–March 2021
Presented operating proposals before appointment as a director; earlier exposure is not described as statutory service.
Committee contribution
| Capacity | Committees |
|---|---|
| Ready to join | Enterprise strategy and policyholder outcomes · Risk and resource-allocation discussions |
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 20 days per year
- Current directorships
- 1
- Sectors
- Insurance and continuing customer obligations · Regulated service enterprises with specialised professional authority
- Company type
- An enterprise with an experienced chair and independent financial, risk and specialist challenge
- Company stage
- Reassessing growth commitments or the resources needed to carry existing obligations
The seat I am pursuing
I would consider one non-executive contribution where a board wants clearer scrutiny of enterprise commitments and the obligations beneath them. An experienced chair should explain how that perspective fits beside the financial, sector and professional skills already represented. I would first join an appropriate strategy, policyholder-outcome or risk discussion after completing the relevant preparation and assessment. I would need to develop further experience before taking on a statutory committee chair role. The company and its advisers must evaluate the actual appointment and applicable requirements. My current service is executive, so it is not proof of independence elsewhere. I would welcome a role where the board can ask management to revise an attractive proposal when the supporting account is incomplete. I would avoid an appointment framed as informal chief-executive cover or routine approval of operating decisions between meetings.
My contribution to a board
I would help a board ask what obligations sit behind an attractive growth, resource or channel headline. My experience includes correcting the population used in an expansion argument, withholding a distribution recommendation and funding service access that a digital plan had understated. Those decisions required me to let a fuller professional account change the enterprise proposal. I would bring that habit to collective oversight while recognising the receiving company’s own financial, legal, risk and sector responsibilities. My executive-director experience is relevant but does not make me a qualified actuary, medical decision-maker or universal committee specialist. The contribution should improve the board’s understanding of the commitment and the unresolved part. It should not encourage directors to approve individual claims, rewrite the operating plan or substitute a former CEO’s preference for the judgement of the management team they have appointed.
Judgement in practice
The bank balance did not establish what the board could distribute
The proposal began with ₹90 crore in the bank and a suggested ₹30 crore dividend. I would ask directors whether the paper has brought together financial position, liabilities, liquidity timing and the applicable conditions before inviting a decision. The figures alone do not establish distributable profit or adequate capital. In my own case I withheld the recommendation and the board deferred it for professional analysis. That action did not prove insolvency or decide that every future distribution would be wrong. The oversight lesson is to make the missing account visible before a convenient subtraction becomes an apparently complete answer. Financial and actuarial owners must retain their assessments, with the board making the company decision through the proper process.
An available digital task was not the same as usable service
In the selected service exercise, seventeen of forty-eight adults completed the defined tasks independently and thirty-one required assistance. I would ask a board how management has examined the people and situations the proposed channel does not serve unaided. The counts do not establish a population rate, and the solution need not reject digital development. Our decision retained assisted capacity and its cost beside the digital programme. Directors should understand whether the service plan has shifted an internal expense onto a customer who cannot complete the task. They should also distinguish assistance from authority to determine a claim or give clinical advice. The question belongs at enterprise level because a channel strategy changes the resources through which continuing obligations are met.
My first year on a board
For an outside appointment I would begin by learning how the receiving company identifies its continuing obligations and reports them alongside new commitments. Through the chair’s induction, I would follow one completed investment and one proposal still awaiting approval. I would ask where professional disagreement entered the paper, who could change the recommendation and how the board later learned whether the assumptions held. Twenty annual days are an initial capacity proposal, including preparation, rather than an assurance that every exceptional event will fit around my current duties. I would seek feedback on whether my questions improve collective judgement or invite directors to behave as an additional executive team. The sector’s own economics and requirements would need study. I would not assume that an insurer’s resource or service model should be reproduced in another enterprise simply because its headline problem sounds familiar.
Conflicts and their management
My employment and executive directorship give me access to policyholder records, provider arrangements, financial projections, product plans and the interests of Merqavni’s three corporate investors. An outside role requires examination of relationships with those parties, other insurers, service providers and commercial partners. I would set out the connections before confidential papers are exchanged and seek advice on the specific appointment, its independence requirements and any committee duties. Having no personal equity does not eliminate the interests arising from the current roles. I would not use another company’s plans to improve our competitive position or bring protected policyholder knowledge into its deliberations. Recusal may address a discrete item, but recurring exclusion from the principal enterprise questions could make the contribution impractical. The insurer’s approvals, the outside calendar and exceptional obligations all need resolution. I would reject an arrangement that depends on privileged access or responsibilities incompatible with the commitments I already carry.
My independence statement
I am the insurer’s CEO and executive director and therefore do not claim independence from it. An outside role needs its own assessment of employment, commercial relationships and access to confidential knowledge.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
Current service is executive. Preparation and registration relevant to a possible independent appointment remain incomplete, with no exemption or assessment pass asserted.
- Developing the distinction between presenting an enterprise recommendation and challenging one collectively from outside management
- Preparing to assess outside-role requirements, committee responsibilities and relationships involving policyholders, providers and investors