For most insurance carriers, the word "transformation" conjures images of new software platforms and cloud migrations. At Frankenmuth Insurance, it meant something more disciplined: a decade-long commitment to rebuilding every core system in the business while simultaneously retiring the legacy infrastructure that had accumulated beneath it. In March 2026, the Michigan-based mutual insurer decommissioned its mainframe entirely, a milestone that Amy Bingham (pictured), chief information officer, describes as both a technical achievement and a cultural one.
"What really sets our transformation apart is the deliberate focus the organization had on not only modernizing the business, but also being very deliberate to reduce our legacy complexity and technical debt along the way," Bingham said. "In my experience, that's where a lot of organizations fall short."
"They either experience fatigue or cost overruns with large-scale transformations, and as a result they abandon some of those legacy technical debt remediations. That causes impact to the organization and limits the ability to truly reap the benefits of transformation."
That discipline, she argues, is now paying dividends. With the mainframe gone and a modern infrastructure in place, Frankenmuth's technology teams are no longer dividing their attention between legacy maintenance and forward-looking development. The company is channeling that freed capacity into geographic expansion, faster product development, and sharper risk management tools.
At the center of Frankenmuth's technology strategy is Guidewire, the core insurance platform the carrier has run on premise for nearly a decade. The company is now migrating to Guidewire's cloud platform, a move Bingham says will unlock capabilities well beyond the platform itself. Through Guidewire's marketplace of integrated insurtech partners, Frankenmuth will gain access to rapid claims handling tools, fraud detection, advanced underwriting analytics, and geospatial intelligence without having to build or manage those capabilities internally.
"Working with providers that are demonstrating that innovation means we get access to emerging capabilities without adding strain on our internal employees," Bingham said. The company is also modernizing its digital payment processing, a project driven directly by feedback from agents and policyholders who wanted a more streamlined experience.
For Bingham, vendor selection follows a consistent framework. Deep insurance industry expertise tops the list, particularly as artificial intelligence becomes a more prominent feature in third-party solutions. Proven track records matter, but so does the nature of the partnership itself. "I also value partners that approach the relationship as a true collaboration," she said, "ones that demonstrate a genuine investment in us and our long-term success."
Those principles are well documented across the insurance industry's evolving technology landscape, where carrier modernization efforts are accelerating alongside growing expectations from independent agents and policyholders alike.
As AI capabilities embed more deeply into the third-party solutions insurers rely on, Bingham has moved proactively to build governance structures that can keep pace. Frankenmuth established an AI Governance and Risk Committee, charged with vetting new technologies before procurement and ensuring that every tool the company uses meets a consistent standard of fairness, accountability, and regulatory alignment.
"As an insurance provider, we're highly accountable to ensure that our decisions are fair, unbiased, and aligned with regulatory expectations," she said. The committee has also brought a secondary benefit: true enterprise-wide visibility into the technologies being explored across the organization, which Bingham says will help the company manage costs more effectively and improve the overall value delivered by its technology investments.
The governance push reflects a broader pattern emerging among mid-market insurers, as discussed in Insurance Business America's coverage of AI risk management in insurance. Carriers that build oversight frameworks early are better positioned to adopt emerging tools confidently, rather than reactively.
The culture underneath the technology
Bingham is careful to situate Frankenmuth's transformation not just as a technology program, but as an expression of values the company has held for more than 150 years. The insurer's three core values, caring, commitment, and teamwork, are not abstract principles for Bingham; they shape how she leads her IT organization and how it relates to the rest of the business.
"A key priority for me is to ensure that IT is fully integrated with the business teams that are ultimately using the technologies we implement," she said. That integration means listening closely to underwriting, claims, actuarial, and other functions, then aligning on priorities that will deliver the strongest impact. Bingham is equally direct about the risk of overextension. "We have to stay anchored to business priorities and not overstretch the teams," she said. "That helps us ensure we're focusing on the right things."
That grounding may be what distinguishes Frankenmuth's approach from transformations that lose momentum midway through. The company's tagline, "Let's have a frank conversation," turns out to be more than a marketing phrase. It is, Bingham suggests, a genuine operating principle, one that keeps technology decisions tethered to the people and relationships that ultimately define an insurance company's value to its customers.
