Genasys releases Insurance Simulator 2026, the insurance video game it first floated as an April Fools hoax

One of the first free browser games to put you in charge of a whole insurer, built in-house with AI in a fraction of the time it would have taken two years ago.

In an industry better known for managing risk than taking creative ones, Genasys Technologies has done something unusual. It has released Insurance Simulator 2026, one of the first free browser games to put you in charge of an entire insurer, and turned the mechanics of the market into a strategy game anyone can play.

The game was built entirely in-house by the company’s marketing team. Players build an insurer from scratch, choosing its name, logo and CEO avatar, then setting risk appetite and recruitment policy before developing staff, taking on broker agencies, underwriting risks against live market terms and handling claims. The business fails when cash reserves run dry, when the loss ratio runs too hot for too long, or when the FCA intervenes. It is free, needs no signup, and runs in the browser at https://www.genasystech.com/insurance-simulator-2026/.

From impossible to inevitable in two years
The idea began in 2024 as an April Fools joke. Genasys announced through the trade press that it was sponsoring Insurance Simulator 2024, a management game built by an independent studio and coming to Steam. None of it existed, including the studio head quoted in the announcement, a man called Ian Trelom whose name is an anagram of "I’m not real". Nobody noticed, then or since.

At the time, the notion of a policy administration software firm building a game of that depth was laughable, which was the point. The industry response was not. Readers asked, in all seriousness, where they could buy it. Comments included "I’d so play this if it was a thing" and "Someone should absolutely make this".

Two years later, what was comically unrealistic has become routine. That shift is the reason Genasys built the game for real, and the reason it is talking about it now.

Why this matters beyond the game
Ed Halsey, VP of Marketing at Genasys, said: "In 2024 we invented a games studio, because inventing a developer was easier than becoming one. In 2026 we did not need one. We built this with a blend of generative AI tools: Claude Code, Midjourney, ChatGPT and Photoshop. The distance between an idea and a working thing has collapsed for everyone, not only companies with a development team on retainer. The same shift that let a marketing team build a game in a few months is now reshaping how insurance software itself gets built."

Gavin Peters, Chief Growth Officer at Genasys, said: "Two things make this more than a bit of fun. The first is what it shows about software. A game of this depth was out of reach for a team our size in 2024, and two years later one person built it in months. The second is what the game itself lays bare. To survive it you have to run underwriting, distribution, claims and marketing, and every one of those functions now depends on software to work at all. That is the point we care about. Insurance has become a software business, the tools for building that software have transformed, and it is happening on our platform. The game is the most enjoyable way we could think of to make that argument."

Genasys has confirmed that planned updates include delegated authority, mergers and acquisitions, deeper reinsurance mechanics and the London Market. Delegated authority and M&A were both features of the game described in the 2024 hoax, so the roadmap is, in part, the fake feature list catching up with itself.

Insurance Simulator 2026 is available now at https://www.genasystech.com/insurance-simulator-2026/