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ABSTRACTExtensive research was carried out on the relation between pollution performances of high voltage insulators and their shape. However, very little work has been published using numerical optimisation methods. In this article, we propose an alternative approach for optimising insulators shapes by adopting an optimisation numerical approach, namely the genetic algorithms technique combined with the finite element method for electrical field and leakage current density calculation. The objective is to compare the pollution performance of an industrial cap and pin insulator with its optimised model obtained using a genetic algorithms optimisation method. The impact of the insulator shape and the pollution on the electrical parameters (voltage, electric field and conduction current density distributions) are quantified. In this work, it was shown that the optimised shape performs better than the existing equivalent units when the pollution is deposited near to high voltage terminal located at the pin of a cap-and-pin insulator.