Stuart Kerr of Highland Beach with his wife, June. Together, they created AppealArmor, a free tool that drafts formal appeal letters for people who have been denied health insurance claims. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
An entrepreneur and sales and marketing executive for software companies for many years, Highland Beach resident Stuart Kerr has a passion for business. So, why quit working?
He didn’t. After retiring three years ago he dove into ChatGPT and created an AI strategy consulting business.
In addition, he and his wife, June, sponsor a dozen women in Asia who are attending college through the charity U-GO University.
He also runs a team of volunteers to provide AI training to 10,000 scholars through U-GO University, which funds higher education scholarships to talented women in low-income countries.
His latest venture: Kerr, with June, launched AppealArmor in July, a free AI-based tool that arms consumers to fight insurance claim denials.
“Fewer than one in 500 denials are ever appealed,” he said. “So, by definition, when the insurance company denies you, it wins. It’s a claim not paid — a great deal for the insurance company, a terrible deal for people who pay their health care benefits and then can’t get the health care they expected, especially while they’re going through a health scare.
“We essentially built a solution that takes your denial letter through a sort of AI-based jujitsu, where we take all the insurance company’s arguments against doing it, and build an entire argument that shows why their denial was wrong. And while you’re at it, you can go one step further and escalate an appeal to file a complaint with your state’s insurance commission. That will put the insurance company on notice and force it to actively reconsider and respond to your appeal letter in a timely fashion.”
He began building AppealArmor a year ago, based on his and his wife’s experience in dealing with denial letters over many years. When Stuart, 62, and June met 25 years ago, she was a single mother with 10-year-old triplets. Rachel, Zoe and Matthew just celebrated their 35th birthday.
Actually, the babies were quads, born so early that about 27 doctors were in the delivery room. But a daughter, Erica, developed a staph infection and died within 48 hours.
June was caring for preemie triplets while mourning the loss of Erica. That’s pretty unthinkable. But preemies often have body challenges that come with not being carried to term, and the triplets have totaled 16 surgeries.
Before marrying Stuart, June had already navigated 10 of those surgeries and was expert at dealing with insurance denials. Recently, a friend who was denied a claim asked June for help. “She said to me, ‘I’m done with this. There is no good solution when a person gets denied. We need a system to fight back, and you’re someone who can help.’”
In response, Stuart built AppealArmor.com.
Here’s how it works. After you upload a photo or PDF of your denial letter, AppealArmor makes a package that includes a draft of an appeal letter citing specific legal and clinical guidelines that insurers respect. It generates a state regulatory complaint letter and calculates appeal deadlines, then delivers a ready-to-sign, ready-to-mail packet in minutes that otherwise could take hours to compile manually.
He estimates an appeal’s success rate to be 40-60%, because you can be denied for legitimate reasons, he said. “The thing to remember, ‘one in 500 people appeal,’ so your odds are infinitely better than zero.”
AppealArmor is free to use for consumers and takes five minutes. The system uses different AIs to validate information, and the tool is secure. “Your information never leaves your side of the web browser,” Stuart said.
— Christine Davis
Q. Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A. Cherry Hill, New Jersey, just outside Philadelphia. My family helped run a local soda company, Frank’s Soda, and that business taught me early on what it means to be part of a community. You knew your customers, you showed up for your neighbors, and you understood that a business could be a way of serving the people around you, not just a way of making money. I went on to get my MBA at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, but that hometown lesson never left me.
From there, life took me to Chicago for 20 years, where I met my wife, June — she’d recently been through a divorce and was raising 10-year-old triplets, Matthew, Rachel and Zoe, on her own. We built our life together on Long Island, raising the kids there until they left for college, and 11 years ago we moved to Highland Beach, which has been home ever since. It’s a long way from Cherry Hill to Highland Beach, but that same instinct — show up for the people around you.
Q. What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A. I got my start in sales and marketing for software companies, and that background shaped everything that came after — you learn early how to read a room, tell a story with data, and understand what a customer actually needs versus what they say they need. That grew into more than 30 years as an operating executive and entrepreneur.
Over that time, I’ve helped build more than a dozen software companies — including taking two of them public, Vitria and Fleetmatics, both of which reached valuations over $1 billion. I’ve also helped sell five companies and served on the board of four more. More recently I founded ISO Vision LLC, where I help enterprises use AI to automate business processes.
But if you’d asked me a year ago what I was proudest of, I’d have given you that corporate answer. Today it’s different. My wife and I just launched AppealArmor.com, a free AI tool that helps people fight back when their health insurance denies them care.
Q. What advice do you have for a young person selecting a career today?
A. Don’t chase the job title — chase the problem.
Q. How did you choose to make your home in Highland Beach?
A. We landed here about 11 years ago after our kids headed off to college and June and I found ourselves with a chance to choose our next chapter together. Part of it was family — my parents, Burton and Hope Kerr, were in West Palm Beach, and June’s parents, Bob and Elaine Eisenberg, were in Boynton Beach, so Highland Beach put us close to both.
Q. What is your favorite part about living in Highland Beach?
A. Honestly, my favorite part is watching June swim. She’s an active open-water ocean swimmer — she’ll walk out our back door and swim several miles in open water, several times a week. There’s something amazing about a town where your backyard is the Atlantic Ocean and your spouse gets to live her passion just by stepping outside.
Q. What book are you reading now?
A. I just finished a phenomenal book called There Was a Time, written by a colleague of mine, John Lipsey. It’s coming out later this fall.
Q. What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax?
A. When I need to relax or feel nostalgic, it’s ’80s music — Sting and The Police, that whole era. When I’m heads-down working, I put on progressive house — no words, just a groove, so it doesn’t pull my attention away from the screen.
Q. Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions?
A. “You only have one shot at life — don’t spend it living somebody else’s.” I’ve always paired that with Steve Jobs’ idea of being a maverick, of trying to make a dent in the universe. The point isn’t ego — it’s that we’re only here once, and we owe it to the people we love to actually make an impact while we can.
Q. Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A. My heroes aren’t in a boardroom — they’re in my house. My wife, June, and our kids.
Q. If your life story were made into a movie, who would you want to play you?
A. George Clooney, hands down. I grew up watching his career, and years ago I actually got to be an extra on ER while it was filming — I’ve felt an affinity for him ever since. And hey, it doesn’t hurt that he’s a pretty great actor, too.
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