Bangalore needs a better health insurance system

Manoj Nair: You wanted to work with speech and hearing since you were very young. Your company has expanded very well in little time. What are some of your latest initiatives?

G Krishnakumar: I suffer from a dysfluency syndrome myself and felt the frustration of other children, who were not being able to communicate. This inspired me to pursue a career in speech and hearing. Over the years, our organisation has expanded and launched several awareness campaigns in the segment. We now even have a helpline number, where people can call for enquiries.

MN: Your passion is commendable! It took me years to identify insurance as a career. In fact, I struggled to complete my engineering, as I wasn’t too interested in it. After that, I complete my MBA and worked in several sectors like finance, HR, IT and finally ended up in insurance. It was quite a journey.

GK: You are from insurance industry. What kind of growth does the health care sector, in insurance have?

MN: There is a rapid growth in the sector. Apart from individual health insurance, a lot of corporate houses are subscribing to health insurance schemes. Initially only higher income families signed up for health insurance policies. But due to a large awareness now, health insurance is slowly making an impact in lower-income segments as well.

MN: I have travelled throughout the country and finally settled in Bangalore. How did you decided to make this city your home?

GK: It is one of the most pleasant cities I have visited, though the traffic here is intolerable. Sometimes, the manner in which the Government works is also disturbing, mishaps like the Carlton Tower blast and few others being an example.

MN: I agree that the system could work better. I have been to Delhi and really liked the way the metro rail project was planned and executed. We definitely need a good support system for things to run smoother here.

G Krishnakumar is the director of Rajan’s Speech and Hearing centre. He first became interested in the fields of audiology and speech language pathology at ten to 12 years of age, when a speech language pathologist treated him for speech dysfluency at General Hospital Chennai. During the daily session at the Hospital, he saw the frustration of other children not being able to communicate, which inspired Krishnakumar to pursue a career in Speech and Hearing.

Manoj Nair has nearly 11 years of work experience in the financial sector in various capacities especially in business strategy, retail and corporate sales and strategy. As zonal vice president, south, Bharti AXA General Insurance Co Ltd, he is in charge of the company’s sales and operations in the southern region. Prior to joining Bharti AXA GI, Manoj was VP strategic initiatives and sales, GE Capital India and was also part of the core team responsible for setting up the leasing business.