At some point, many of you may have come across clients that had trouble understanding insurance concepts, given that such concepts are not exactly the most intuitive or easiest to pick up.
Now, there is something that could help with that – a boardgame currently in development that focuses on raising insurance awareness and knowledge, especially among younger audiences.
Earlier this year, Singaporean boardgame designer Capital Gains Studio announced the launch of a new board game, Zombielife Insurance, on Kickstarter in a bid to raise funds for the manufacture and development of the game, which is designed to educate the public about basic insurance concepts and how different types of insurance policies work.
The Kickstarter campaign has raised over S$13,000 ($9,500) at time of writing, more than double its initial target of S$5,000.
The company has published several finance-themed games such as Wongamania (about economic cycles and investment portfolio management), Debtzilla (debt management), Cryptocurrency and Dirty Money (money laundering education) since its inception in 2015. Cryptocurrency and Debtzilla have gone on to win game awards in the US and UK.
How it works
Zombielife Insurance is a two-to-five-player game where each tries to survive a zombie outbreak while trying to emerge as the winner by being the richest player at the end. They can earn money by buying insurance and earn huge insurance pay-outs when infected by the zombie virus and risking their life; or they can try to survive to earn huge survival bonus and make money via endowment and investment.
The game covers important insurance concepts such as how different types of insurance work, the higher cost of insurance premiums due to age and pre-existing conditions, early surrender penalty for cash value plans, the higher probability of getting ill in old age, the risk of underinsurance and impact on wealth due to illness, potential cashflow problems with over-insurance due to excessive premiums, and risk/reward comparisons between investment and endowment insurance.
It also comes with an educational guide which will help facilitate learning of the concepts even if none of the players present have in-depth knowledge. The guide can also be used on its own as an educational tool.
Having the guide separate from the game allows the company to put educational value into the game without blatantly presenting itself as an educational game which, from an entertainment standpoint, are typically poorly designed in that they try to be too realistic and end up being boring games.
Incorporating zombies – a theme that has been prominent in recent popular culture – also helps to get younger generations excited about the game.
Late Kickstarter pledges for Zombielife Insurance are still available at S$35.