Never before has Liang Meiling been so confident of her career as a life insurance sales agent.

In her 30s, Liang has been working in the industry for a decade. She now works for China Life Insurance Corp's Guangzhou branch.

"In the past, many people would just hang up and we had to put a lot of effort into persuading potential customers just to talk with us about life insurance face-to-face, not to mention getting them to buy a product," she said. "But now it's a different story."

"Many people have phoned us in the past year to ask whether we have good life insurance products for them," she added. "Now we need only offer them suitable products and explain the benefits and procedures."

Liang said her sales had seen sustained growth over the past few years. Her 2006 sales were almost double those in 2005. She said she was optimistic about her career development in the industry this year and in the future.

According to a report released earlier this week by the Guangdong Insurance Industry Association, the province posted life insurance premiums of 32.9 billion yuan in 2006, representing a growth of 19 percent from 2005. This figure did not include life insurance premiums in the city of Shenzhen, as its figures are not reported to the provincial association.

The growth rate in 2006 was 5 percentage points higher than in 2005 and 8.3 percentage points higher than the national average.

"When Shenzhen's figure is included, Guangdong Province tops any other province nationwide," said Wu Junhua, an analyst with the industry association. "And Guangdong will maintain its leadership position in the coming years."

Guangdong's GDP and its residents' savings deposits have long been ahead of other provinces in the nation, he said.

And the province offers untapped market potential for life insurers.

Wu said that life insurers had secured only 1.7 percent of the province's market potential in 2006, compared to the national average of 2.05 percent.

He attributed the growth of the life insurance premium partly to changing perceptions of the product, improvement of living standards, and the insurance industry association's efforts to protect the interests of both insurers and the insured.

"A growing number of people in the province no longer regard life insurance as something that bodes ill. Instead, they resort to it for protection, just in case," he said. "Equally important, they are able to afford it!"

The association has set up a commission exclusively for the mediation of insurance contract disputes involving a maximum risk of 500,000 yuan.

He said that all 36 insurance firms in Guangdong have promised to respect the commission's mediation work.