Press kit: the free tool that fights health-insurance denials — built at a kitchen table in Highland Beach, Florida.

What AppealArmor is

A patient uploads (or photographs, or pastes) their denial letter. AppealArmor shows every detail it read, with the quote it came from, and the patient confirms or corrects each one. It then drafts a formal appeal letter that answers the insurer's stated reason and quotes the federal appeal rules for the patient's type of plan, taken from official sources. The patient gets the letter as an editable Word file and a PDF, plus a Next Steps sheet: where to send it, the deadline as the denial letter states it, who to copy (for a state-regulated plan, the state insurance regulator), and who to contact if the appeal is denied again. Anything only the patient or their doctor can supply is left as a visible "[PROVIDE: ...]" marker rather than invented. It handles any denial letter, including medical-necessity, prior-authorization, step-therapy, out-of-network, experimental/investigational and mental-health denials.

It is free for consumers — no account and no credit card. The patient gives an email address so the files can be sent to them. Each case is stored encrypted and deleted after 31 days. See a sample made for a fictional patient.

Why it exists

Stuart and June Kerr's triplets needed 16 surgeries between them in their early years. Every operation brought a paperwork war: pre-authorizations, denials, peer-to-peer reviews, internal appeals, external reviews. Stuart — an AI researcher by profession — wrote those appeals by hand, at the kitchen table, for years.

What the family learned the hard way is the heart of the story: the appeal system works, but it is engineered to exhaust people into not using it. The expertise barrier (what do I cite?), the time barrier (hours per letter), and the intimidation barrier (a corporation said no) mean almost nobody fights back — even though the people who fight, frequently win.

That is why AppealArmor is free. The family built the thing they wished had existed, and decided the people who need it most — families in the middle of a medical crisis — should never hit a paywall on the way to their own appeal rights.

The numbers behind the story (all third-party, citable)

• Fewer than 1% of denied claims in federal ACA marketplace plans are ever appealed (KFF analysis of CMS transparency data).
• ~44% of internal appeals that are filed succeed (KFF).
• More than 80% of appealed Medicare Advantage denials are overturned.
• ~69% of consumers don't know they have the right to appeal at all.
• The Estate of Lokken v. UnitedHealth Group litigation alleges the insurer's "nH Predict" algorithm denied care with a ~90% error rate — while only ~0.2% of affected patients appealed. In February 2025 the court dismissed most claims as preempted but let the breach-of-contract and good-faith claims proceed; no class has been certified.
• The Florida angle: Florida is the largest ACA marketplace in the nation. With premium subsidies expiring, Floridians are moving to thinner plans that deny more — making the unexercised right to appeal a bigger story here than anywhere.

Fast facts

The founders

Interview & filming availability

Stuart and June are both available for on-camera interviews, including at home in Highland Beach with the original appeal paperwork from those years. Stuart can demonstrate the tool live — denial letter to finished appeal — on camera or on a call. They can speak to: the family's own denial-and-appeal history (on the record), how denial letters are written to discourage appeals, what AI changes on both sides of the fight, and what Florida patients specifically can do.