Matthew Niederhauser

NAME: Dr.Joerg-Michael Luther
AGE: 63
NATIONALITY: German
YEAR FIRST CAME TO CHINA: 1976
CURRENT JOB: General Representative, Allianz China

For most people, coming to China two days after the death of Chairman Mao and seeing him lying in state would qualify them as an ‘Old China Hand,’ but Joerg-Michael Luther has an even more impressive claim to fame. “This hand shook the hand of Jiang Qing,” he says as he lifts his right hand, refe ......e are 100 insurance companies in China, while there are far above 500 in Germany, serving a population of only 85 million.

While Allianz’s life insurance business, its largest concern in China, is not yet making a profit, because, Luther says, it has not had the 10 to 15 years required to reach critical mass, Allianz’s expansion in China has grown in leaps and bounds over the past few years. Life insurance premiums grew  about 150% in 2007, and they had a 10,000-strong available agency force by the end of the year. After 15 years of hard slog and set up, “we are seeing a climax,” he says.