Finding the right identity theft protection service comes down to your budget and the type of features you need. A few stand out features we recommend include white-glove identity restoration, identity theft insurance and three-bureau credit monitoring.
With Aura (our best overall pick), you get all of the above services and more included with all plans. Though Aura may lack some other features you need. It doesn’t offer monitoring of medical records or BNPL plans. IDShield and LifeLock’s base individual plans also offer more identity theft insurance coverage. So choose the one that best fits what you’re looking for.
Comparing ID theft protection monitoring features
Most services include dark web monitoring for personal information and credit report monitoring, but some offer less common monitoring services for your bank account and home and auto title monitoring.
If a company offers monitoring of multiple aspects of your personal information, it’s less for you to have to track on your own and easier to catch any issues that arise. However, you’ll have to pay more for these services beyond the standard dark web and credit report monitoring.
Choosing between basic and premium plans
Again, it comes down to the kind of features you’re looking for. A basic plan will do just fine so long as you’re OK with basic monitoring services. Most basic plans will include dark web monitoring and at least one credit bureau monitoring (unless your Aura, which includes all three).
You’ll typically need to pay to unlock 401k monitoring, title monitoring and social media monitoring. Higher tier plans might also include higher identity theft insurance — bumping the standard $1 million to $2 million or more.
You can monitor all of these things yourself, for free, but automating that process could be worth the money.
Individual vs. family plans
Whether you need coverage for just yourself or your family will inform the plan you choose. If it’s just you, the individual plans will be your best bet, but if you’re looking for wider coverage, take a look at the family plans.
How much insurance coverage do you need?
Identity theft insurance typically covers you against the costs incurred while recovering your identity. Most insurance will cover the cost of replacing important documents, any legal fees you might incur, case manager fees, any alert fees on your credit reports and even lost wages.
However, most insurance plans will not cover stolen money or financial loss from fraudulent purchases. You’ll need to go to your credit card issuer or bank for that. Check the terms of your plan to see what it does and doesn’t cover.
The industry standard is to have coverage of up to $1 million, but some services, like LifeLock, offer more, typically on the higher membership tiers.
Comparing identity restoration services
Not all ID theft restoration services are created equal. For instance, some say they’ll walk you through what you need to do, versus actually doing it for you. The latter form of restoration service is called white-glove restoration, and is obviously the better of the two.
If your identity is stolen, white-glove programs will do the work for you, rather than giving you more work to do during an already stressful situation. And you don’t always have to pay more to get it. Looking at you, once again, Aura.
Free vs. paid identity theft protection services
As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. Free services are better than having no protection, but they obviously won’t offer as much protection as a paid service. You can get free credit report monitoring and free dark web monitoring, but for everything else, from insurance to three-credit bureau and SSN monitoring, you’ll have to shell out for it.
Choose the tier that makes sense for you. Check out the feature list on each service. Unless there’s something you’re particularly interested in, like title monitoring and a higher insurance coverage amount, you might be fine with just the basic tier.
Identity protection for children
Not every identity theft protection service will extend protections like insurance to your children. Although many will offer some type of coverage for minors, two services that offer ID theft insurance for your kids are:
- LifeLock by Norton
- IdentityIQ
