Qiu Xichun, Vice President and Director of Marketing and Advertising for Taikang life

Purchasing insurance policies in China has become a popular business trend in recent years. The size of the middle class continues to grow by leaps and bounds, as more Chinese residents can afford life insurance for their families. Taikang Life Co. Ltd., one of China's top five life insurance companies, stands poised to capture a large share of the domestic market.

Qiu Xichun, Vice President and Director of Marketing and Advertising for Taikang life, told ChinAfrica the company has enjoyed high performance in the past five years and has established a prominent presence in the insurance sector, even though it was founded just 15 years ago.

Family first

Qiu has witnessed the tremendous growth first-hand. "When I joined the company [14 years ago] Taikang Life had less than 100 people." But nowadays, Taikang Life has 20,000 employees with over 200,000 agents spreadout in 35 branches across China.

Taikang Life, led by Chairman and CEO Chen Dongsheng, has assets totaling 293.37 billion yuan ($46.2 billion), and a net asset of 13.467 billion yuan ($2.72 billion), while the company had a total of 54 million customers, by the end of 2010, according to the company.  Profit in the year soared to 2.1 billion yuan ($330 million).

The figures appear more impressive considering that until recently few Chinese were interested in buying insurance. "China is like virgin land," Qiu said, when explaining how the company started from scratch to become one of the country's leading insurance providers. "First, we focus on just one thing and that's life insurance," Qiu said, adding that the "family" is the target audience for Taikang Life and largely the core area of the company's success.

This may explain why Taikang Life can persuade many skeptical Chinese families to purchase its life insurance products, since promoting strong family values has proven essential to maintain high sales growth.

In prior years, Taikang Life produced TV commercials that filmed interviews with customers and their families, as they spoke about how buying life insurance had benefited their loved ones. Yet, Qiu told ChinAfrica that they have embarked on a new ad campaign that promotes Taikang Life through a different style of marketing strategy. The company hired Chinese tennis superstar, Li Na, the women's 2011 French Open champion, as their official spokesperson.

"Taikang Life and Li Na are a good partnership, since the company's board of directors believes that her work ethic and fervent support for family values best represent their ideals. She symbolizes global prestige and excellence, which is the same path taken by Taikang Life when they adhere to international business standards," Qiu said.