I am Imtiaz Qavzethi, chief financial officer at the fictional Zevqari Health Assurance in Raipur. I began in diagnostic-service billing after growing up in Aligarh. That work taught me to examine what a unit represented before comparing its price. A bill, a policy, a covered person and an administrative task are different things. Finance becomes useful when it keeps those distinctions visible long enough for colleagues to decide what they should fund, change or leave alone.
Zevqari employs 410 people across fourteen branches and central functions. Gross written premium was ₹940 crore for FY ending March 2026; assets of ₹1,420 crore are a separate balance-sheet measure. A domestic industrial holding company owns 56%, a private-equity investor 34% and an employee vehicle 10%. I have no personal holding. My 34-person finance organisation works through five heads within ₹5.6 crore FY 2026–27 function expense, reporting to Rhea Zelmethi. Harish Velqazi leads actuarial work. Medical, claims, underwriting and investment responsibilities remain with their authorised owners; a financial model does not transfer those decisions to me.
My cases concern comparisons that initially looked easier than they were. A fall in cost per policy reflected a shift in family and individual cover, while cost per covered life-year barely changed. A hospital-network discount required an advance whose funding cost exceeded the proposed benefit on the stated assumptions. An approved shareholder contribution had only partly arrived, so it could not support the full commercial commitment requested. A processing contract's low unit quote concealed an annual minimum. In each case, I wanted the recommendation to include the actual basis of comparison, the alternative and the obligation created by choosing it.
The denominator changed the efficiency story
Service expense of ₹4.2 crore then ₹4.32 crore was compared with 36,000 then 48,000 policy-years and 84,000 then 86,000 covered life-years. The two views answered different questions.
The discount had to carry its funding account
Two per cent of ₹20 crore eligible bills was ₹40 lakh; an ₹8 crore year-long advance carried ₹64 lakh at the model's 8% funding assumption.
Approved capital was not all received cash
Of an ₹80 crore shareholder funding plan, ₹32 crore had arrived and ₹48 crore remained conditional. The commercial spending recommendation used that distinction.
Current focus
Explaining the cost and funding basis of service decisions before an attractive comparison becomes an enterprise commitment.
Conversations I welcome
A first external board role where directors want practical finance judgement about service economics, with appropriate preparation and employer consent.