About Our Team

Stephen C. Burgess spent 13 years inside the life insurance industry at Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company. He started as a Sales Manager, built a San Diego branch with over 40 agents, and rose to Regional Director for Southern California — personally underwriting and issuing thousands of policies along the way.

But Steve saw something that troubled him: valid claims were being denied every day. Insurers weren't looking for reasons to pay — they were looking for reasons to deny. Grieving families and critically ill policyholders were being told “no” based on technicalities, opaque calculations, and bureaucratic runarounds.

In 2000, Steve founded the Center for Life Insurance Disputes with a simple idea: use his insider knowledge of how insurance companies actually work to fight for the people those companies are supposed to protect. Instead of filing lawsuits that drag on for years, he would go directly to the insurers — armed with the evidence, the policy language, and the industry standards they couldn't ignore.

Critical Illness Claim Advocate is supported by a multidisciplinary team of medical and clinical experts — including Dr. Robert Sklaroff (board-certified in Internal Medicine and Oncology), Dr. James Pearle (Pulmonary and Internal Medicine), Mariann Cosby, DNP (trauma and critical care nursing), and Dr. Ricky Norwood, DNP (UC Davis School of Nursing) — who provide independent case reviews and medical opinions that strengthen every claim.

That approach has now recovered over $250 million for clients across all 50 states. Critical Illness Claim Advocate is the consumer brand of that mission — making expert claim advocacy accessible to everyone facing a denied or underpaid insurance claim.