Identity Guard ID Theft Protection Review
If you value timely and detailed alerts, we found that Identity Guard is one of the best options in the industry
What We Like
- Affordability: Individual plans for personal use range from $7.50 to $25 per month, billed yearly, which is at the low end of the market. Additionally, family plans cover up to five adults and unlimited children.
- $1 million reimbursements: We felt good knowing that we were insured for up to $1 million if anyone should manage to hijack our identities.
- AI identity monitoring: Identity Guard uses IBM’s Watson artificial intelligence, a computer so smart it has beaten the world’s best chess champions, to keep an eye out for identity theft.
What We Don't Like
- Cheapest plan doesn’t include credit monitoring: If you’re looking for comprehensive identity theft protection, the cheapest plan isn’t a good choice due to its lack of credit monitoring. Credit monitoring is available starting with the $16.67 per month Total plan.
- Unimpressive app: While it’s easy to use, Identity Guard’s app isn’t as comprehensive as we had hoped.
- Limited proactive protection:: Although all plans include a Safe Browsing feature and password manager, Identity Guard has yet to offer a VPN, which is becoming an increasingly common feature included with identity theft protection services.
Bottom Line
Credit monitoring, financial monitoring, dark web scanning, and criminal monitoring are just some of the features that Identity Guard covers. Starting at just $7.50 per month, you really can't find a more affordable service than Identity Guard, especially one that uses artificial intelligence to improve its monitoring.The best advice we can give you if you want to avoid identity theft is to limit the exposure of your personal information. One way to do that is by using a data removal service to keep your information off of data broker sites. But there are other things you can do, like monitor the dark web for compromised data, check the transactions in your credit report, and monitor your financial accounts. The good news? Identity Guard can help you do all those.
To be fair, those are typical features of an identity theft protection service, which Identity Guard is. So before deciding if it’s the right service for you, read this review first. We tested Identity Guard from its $7.50 Value plan to its most comprehensive subscription, and we’re here to outline its upsides and downsides. To start, here’s an overview of what Identity Guard offers:
- Individual plans for personal use range from $7.50 to $25 per month, charged to you yearly.
- Identity theft insurance** with a maximum reimbursement of $1 million
- Monitored three credit bureaus (with Total plan or Ultra plan)
- Family plans for five adults and any number of children
Overall Rating
- Identity theft protection powered by IBM® Watson™ AI
- Impressive $1 million in identity theft insurance
- Multiple service levels, from basic to advanced
Video Review
Identity protection services are complex, so this review is going to be long. If you prefer watching to reading, see our Identity Guard video review below. Gabe Turner, an attorney and our Chief Editor, breaks down Identity Guard’s features and app, and shows just how well it works in protecting identities and personal information.
Features
Let’s get one thing straight: There’s no service that can guarantee protection against identity theft. Mischievous actors on the internet use a variety of tactics to steal identities, from slimy and diabolical social engineering scams to downright hacking. Not to mention, there are plenty of other ways criminals steal identities outside the internet. Even with the highest-rated identity protection services, your identity can still be stolen.
The real purpose of identity protection is to catch early signs of identity theft so you can react and prevent legal, financial, and/or reputational damages. To do that, services monitor areas like credit accounts, the dark web, and court and public records – places where stolen identities often turn up.
To test out how quickly and how well Identity Guard detects signs of theft, we signed up for the Ultra plan, Identity Guard’s top-tier protection. It gave us complete access to all of its features from credit monitoring to identity monitoring. Here’s our experience.
Credit Monitoring
According to our Identity Theft Consumer Shopping Study, credit monitoring is a core function most shoppers look for. Fortunately, it’s also a common feature in identity protection services.
Identity Guard’s credit monitoring involved closely watching credit-related activities such as hard credit pulls and new loan applications. We applied for a student loan shortly after we signed up for Identity Guard’s protection, and we received an alert later in the day. If it were a fraudulent loan application, we would have been able to take immediate action like contacting the loan provider, freezing our credit, or putting a fraud alert on our credit account. Identity Guard would have helped us do the last one if needed.
Unfortunately, we learned that not all Identity Guard users enjoy credit protection. It’s reserved for the upper-tier plans like our Ultra plan, but is absent from the bottom-tier Value plan ($7.50 per month). We’ll get more into the pricing details below, but that shows that it pays to go with a more expensive plan – at least if you’re worried about credit fraud.
Here’s everything we got from our Ultra plan:
- Three-bureau credit monitoring
- Monthly credit score updates calculated based on our Equifax credit file
- Experian credit lock
- Three-bureau annual credit report
As for how Identity Guard compares to others, it’s all standard except for the Value plan’s lack of credit monitoring. As you can see in our LifeLock cost assessment, other companies offer basic credit monitoring even in their lowest-tier subscriptions. LifeLock in particular offers one-bureau credit monitoring with the entry-level and mid-level options, and three-bureau credit monitoring with the top-tier plan. So even if you sign up for the lowest subscription, LifeLock still gived you some level of credit protection. It’s a better option than Identity Guard if you want affordable credit monitoring, but if you want to learn more, see our LifeLock and Identity Guard comparison.
Financial Monitoring
Apart from your credit score, one of the first areas identity thieves will target if they get a hold of your identity is your finances. That includes your bank accounts, credit cards, and even investment accounts. Identity Guard monitored all those.
For instance, Identity Guard notified us and showed us a list of the personally identifiable information entered into our bank’s system when we set up a new account. This would have been helpful if it had been a case of identity theft, as we would have known which details were compromised, tracked where the leak came from, and avoided future incidents.
Now for the catch: Financial monitoring is a premium feature and the extent of Identity Guard’s protection will depend on your subscription. When we tried out the Value plan, it only promised to monitor for high-risk transactions. The mid-tier Total plan wasn’t much better, as it added in only bank account monitoring. Mind you, those are helpful features. But usually, the big ticket targets of identity thieves are credit cards and investment accounts. Only the Ultra plan monitors those.
Identity Protection
Identity protection is at the very core of Identity Guard subscriptions. Unlike with credit and financial monitoring, you’ll get all identity protection features no matter which plan you choose. But what is identity protection?
Basically, Identity Guard will ask you to provide information you want to protect – your name, address, Social Security Number, birthdate, and so on. If it sees any of that information in a data breach, on the dark web, and other places where stolen identities usually turn up, it will let you know immediately. Most types of identity theft start with a stolen piece of information, so the inclusion of identity protection in every Identity Guard plan is valuable.
Here’s exactly what we got from our Identity Guard subscription.
- Dark web scan: The dark web, an area of the internet in which all users remain anonymous, is a hotbed of cybercrime. As part of our membership, Identity Guard sent us alerts if it found our credentials on the dark web. The one time this occurred, Identity Guard explained the situation plainly and prompted us to change our passwords.
- Criminal and sex offense monitoring: If the system found our names on a sex offender registry or police report, it would have notified us right away, but thankfully, this didn’t happen to us.
- USPS address change monitoring:We moved apartments while testing Identity Guard, and of course, we had to change our address registered to the USPS. The same day we did, Identity Guard notified us that an address change was filed. If it were a real thief trying to forward our mail (which contains tons of personal information) to their address, we would have been alerted.
- Home title monitoring: If someone opened a home title in our names, or tried to transfer a home title from our names to theirs if we ever had one, Identity Guard would let us know immediately.
- Risk management report: Identity Guard produced a report that showed us how at risk we were for identity fraud.
- Safe browsing tools: Identity Guard even had a browser extension that helped protect our privacy online, fighting against phishing attacks, blocking ads, flash, trackers, and mining.
- Anti-phishing mobile app: Aside from the Identity Guard Classic app, the company offered us the Anti Phishing by Identity Guard mobile app, which detected and blocked phishing websites on Chrome, Dolphin, and Samsung Internet.
One aspect we liked was the detail in every alert we received (see screenshot above). Right after signing up, Identity Guard used the information we provided to do an initial scan and found a data breach where the email entered was involved. It shows where and when the breach happened, where it found the breached information (dark web), and how it could impact us.
That’s not even the best part. Our favorite is the ‘What Should You Do?’ that lists a couple of things you can do to fix the problem. Not everyone knows how to deal with identity theft and data breaches, but even if you do, those suggestions can be helpful.
Pro Tip: Some people prefer receiving fewer alerts and reminders, and if that’s the case for you, Aura might be a better fit. When we tested Aura, we found that it sends fewer non-emergency notifications than Identity Guard. We still had the option to see tips and security areas we could improve on in the app, but it didn’t bother us with notifications and email alerts.
Insurance and Restoration
Like we said from the start, no identity protection service can truly prevent identity theft. That’s why insurance and identity restoration should be included in all identity protection packages.
According to the policy we signed, Identity Guard would reimburse up to $1 million of our losses if we ever fell victim to identity theft. That would cover anything from stolen funds to legal and personal expenses, and that amount is the industry standard. That said, there are services such as LifeLock and McAfee that offer more. LifeLock in particular offers $1 million coverage each for stolen funds, legal fees, and personal expenses. That’s a total of $3 million.
As for identity restoration, you’ll get a dedicated case manager to help you resolve your case if you’re on the Ultra plan. That means they’ll send letters and file disputes to your credit card companies, take care of filing cases, and do other tasks on your behalf. This service doesn’t extend to Value and Total plan users.
Identity Guard Identity Theft Protection Features
Monthly cost for annual plan | $7.50 – $23.99 |
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Credit score monitoring | Yes |
Sex offender registry monitoring | Yes |
Risk management report | Yes |
Identity theft insurance reimbursement maximum | Up to $1 million |
Live chat customer support | No |
Customer information shared with third parties? | Yes |
Privacy and Security
As everyone could probably tell, privacy plays a big part in identity theft protection. You do your part to protect your privacy, but the company safeguarding your data needs to do their part as well. That’s why aside from testing Identity Guard, we also took a close look at its privacy policy and data security.
When we signed up for an Identity Guard protection plan, we filled in sensitive information about ourselves with the expectation that Identity Guard would protect it from identity thieves. But how about data breaches? Well, Identity Guard uses more than adequate security measures to protect customer data stored on their servers.
For starters, it encrypts all data using “military-grade” encryption, according to its privacy policy. Now, that is a vague description, but in the tech industry, military-grade encryption often means 256-bit AES (because that’s what the U.S. military uses to encrypt sensitive communications). And if that’s the case, nothing is getting past that encryption.
Additionally, Identity Guard makes it clear that it doesn’t share the details you fill in when setting up your protection with third-parties unless absolutely necessary. For example, if you provide Identity Guard complaint information about scam calls you received, they may share it with relevant government agencies such as the FCC and CFPB. However, Identity Guard guarantees that it won’t share your information with advertisers.
Identity Guard, however, does share some types of information with its corporate partners and service providers, but these types of information come from when you visit its website or sign up for a plan. That includes your email address, device information, and IP location — things that other websites you visit already likely collect and share.
Pro Tip: Want to keep your browsing data, device information, and IP location private? Use a VPN or virtual private network. A VPN will encrypt your traffic and hide your IP address for your privacy, so you can browse the internet more anonymously.
User Experience
Identity theft protection services are pretty much a set-and-forget type of service. Once you’re done setting it up with all the information you want to protect, you can just let it be. It will monitor data points and key areas to make sure the information you provided doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
As such, the user experience hinges heavily on the set up process. Identity Guard wasn’t the simplest to set up, but the process was streamlined enough that we could call it user-friendly.
Here’s how it went: First, we filled in our information and bought a subscription. After that, we gained access to our Identity Guard Dashboard, but to fully unlock all features, we had to fill in some more information. This part took the most time as we had to enter our personal details one by one. Identity Guard also had us answer a few multiple-choice questions and a couple of threat-related questions to fine-tune our service.
The more information we gave Identity Guard, the more data they could spit back at us, especially for the AI-powered features like the social insight and risk management reports.
Once we’d input all our information, we navigated between the Dashboard, the alerts, and Watchlist, plus, our credit reports and scores*.
How Much Does Identity Guard Cost?
Identity Guard’s prices are some of the lowest and most flexible we’ve ever seen. Monthly, an individual plan with basic protection costs $8.99, but the individual plans can actually range up to $29.99 as they get more comprehensive. That said, you can sign up for a whole year and save as much as $5 per month. The annual individual plans cost $7.50 to $25 per month, paid once every year.
Besides individual plans, Identity Guard offers family plans, which covers up to five adult individuals and an unlimited number of children. Prices for family plans range from $14.99 to $39.99 if paid monthly, but again, discounts are available for annual plans. Family plans can cost as low as $12.50 to $33.33 per month if paid yearly.
FYI: Identity Guard’s identity protection for minor members of family plans isn’t as comprehensive as its protection for adults. That’s why we strongly recommend teaching them five basic but crucial digital safety habits for teens. Identity protection starts at home, and with our help, the younger generation will learn how to best protect themselves from online dangers and identity theft.
Here’s a breakdown of Identity Guard’s regular prices and features for the three plans available: Value, Total, and Ultra.
Features and pricing | Value | Total | Ultra |
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401k and Investment Account Monitoring | No | No | Yes |
Annual Credit Report from 3 Bureaus | No | No | Yes |
Bank Account Monitoring | No | Yes | Yes |
Credit and Debit Card Monitoring | No | No | Yes |
Credit Monitoring from 3 Bureaus | No | Yes | Yes |
Criminal and Sex Offense Monitoring | No | No | Yes |
Customer Support Based in U.S | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Dark Web Monitoring | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Data Breach Notifications | Yes | Yes | Yes |
High Risk Transaction Monitoring | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Home Title Monitoring | No | No | Yes |
Identity Theft Insurance with $1 Million Maximum Reimbursement | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Monthly Credit Score from 3 Bureaus | No | Yes | Yes |
Risk Management Report | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Safe Browsing Tool | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Social Media Insights Report | No | No | Yes |
USPS Address Change Monitoring | No | No | Yes |
White Glove Resolution Concierge | No | No | Yes |
Monthly plan for individuals | $8.99/month | $19.99/month | $29.99/month |
Annual plan for individuals | $90.00/year | $200.00/year | $300.00/year |
Yearly savings with the annual plan | $17.88 | $39.84 | $59.88 |
Monthly plan for families | $14.99/month | $29.99/month | $39.99/month |
Annual plan for families | $150.00/year | $300.00/year | $400.00/year |
Yearly savings with the annual plan | $29.88 | $59.88 | $79.92 |
Identity Guard offers plans for business and personal use, and within those two categories, individuals and groups. Regardless of which subscription plan we selected, we chose between annual or monthly contracts. We had no trouble finding an Identity Guard plan that worked for us. Identity Guard has a plan for spouses as well, a rarity in the identity monitoring industry.
Identity Guard has three personal plan options for identity theft protection services: Value, Total, and Ultra.
The Ultra plan provided the most coverage whether through the individual plan or the Identity Guard family plan, although it was a reasonable price at either $29.99 per month or $300 per year for an individual. We signed up for a year because we knew we wanted to test out the service, and it includes a 17 percent discount. All plans include a $1 million reimbursement maximum for identity theft, but only the Total and Ultra plans monitor credit scores and reports from all three credit-reporting bureaus.
Unfortunately, Identity Guard doesn’t offer a free trial. However, they do provide a 30-day money-back guarantee, which can work as a trial. Try the software out, and if you aren’t satisfied within those 30 days get your money back. It’s a sort of free trial for Identity Guard, only, it’s not free because you have to pay first.
We appreciated Identity Guard’s 30-day guarantee as a substitute for a free trial. If you’d rather go the try-before-you-buy route, our IdentityIQ review and our LifeLock review are good places to start.
Customer Support
Identity Guard has impressive customer support, whether you’re looking to get more identity theft prevention tips or answers to your account-related questions. Identity Guard publishes several helpful guides and blogs on a monthly basis. Plus, if you’re looking to get more personalized customer support, you can call their phone hotline; it’s available 24/7.
That said, if you have an aversion to making business phone calls like most of us do these days, you have no other option but to send a ticket or send an email. Identity Guard is slower in responding to those. You have to wait for 24 to 48 hours. We sent an email Tuesday morning and got a response Wednesday afternoon.
Additionally, Identity Guard’s email support doesn’t handle concerns that might involve sensitive information such as updating personal details, accounts, and billing. So yeah, you will have to pick up your phone if your concern involves those.
Identity Guard: How It Compares to the Competition
Having discussed what Identity Guard does and how it helps protect its users’ identities, let’s see how it compares to other top options. In particular, let’s compare it to LifeLock and Aura.
Right off the bat, we notice one thing that both LifeLock and Aura offer, but not Identity Guard: device protection in the form of antivirus software. LifeLock tied up with Norton to provide Norton 360 antivirus features through select plans, while Aura includes antivirus software and VPN in every subscription. With Identity Guard, you’ll need a standalone antivirus software to protect you from digital identity theft.
On the bright side, though, Identity Guard’s use of AI puts it on the same level as Aura and LifeLock in terms of detecting identity theft. Identity Guard’s AI and LifeLock and Aura’s broad monitoring coverage equally provide formidable identity theft protection.
Identity Guard, however, stands out for its price, especially if you’re looking to protect the entire family. The $14.99 starting price for the Value family plan is hard to beat. Although it’s not as comprehensive as Aura’s family plan, it offers tremendous value for those who want identity protection (without credit protection) on a budget.
All things considered, we’d say that Identity Guard holds up well against LifeLock and Aura, our two highest-rated identity protection services.
Can Identity Guard stand toe-to-toe with other brands? Find out below.
We tested Identity Guard and compared it side-by-side with other brands to give you the full picture.
Our Identity Guard Research and Data
The following is the data and research conducted for this review by our industry-experts. Learn More.
Encryption
In Transit | Yes |
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At rest? | Yes |
All network communications and capabilities? | Yes |
Security Updates
Automatic, regular software/ firmware updates? | Yes |
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Product available to use during updates? | Yes |
Passwords
Mandatory password? | Yes |
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Two-Factor authentication? | On mobile app, but not on browser |
Multi-Factor authentication? | Yes |
Vulnerability Management
Point of contact for reporting vulnerabilities? | customersupport@identityguard.com |
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Bug bounty program? | No |
Privacy Policy
Link | https://www.identityguard.com/legal/privacy-policy |
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Specific to device? | No |
Readable? | Yes |
What data they log | Name, mailing address, email address, phone number, social security number, birthday, payment information, location information, credit reports, information from social media accounts, like Facebook friends, city specified you live in, content of posts and comments and cookies. |
What data they don’t log | n/a |
Can you delete your data? | No |
Third-party sharing policies | Yes, Identity Guard shares information with third parties. |
Surveillance
Log camera device/ app footage | n/a |
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Log microphone device/ app | n/a |
Location tracking device/ app | Yes |
Parental Controls
Are there parental controls? | Under family plan, can get alerts about child’s information on the dark web |
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Company History
Any security breaches/ surveillance issues in past? | No |
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Did they do anything to fix it? | n/a |
Additional Security Features
Anything like privacy shutters, privacy zones, etc.? | n/a |
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Recap
Overall, Identity Guard is a strong identity protection service. It covers a wide area to monitor for signs of identity theft, it uses artificial intelligence to increase the efficiency of its service, and it values people’s privacy.
It’s not the cheapest service around, especially if you want the whole nine yards, but you get the right value for your money.
Overall, we appreciated Identity Guard’s comprehensive features and low prices on the lower-tiered plans. However, we still felt anyone concerned about privacy might want to find an identity monitoring service that does not share information with third parties.
** Identity Theft Insurance underwritten by insurance company subsidiaries or affiliates of American International Group‚ Inc. The description herein is a summary and intended for informational purposes only and does not include all terms‚ conditions and exclusions of the policies described. Please refer to the actual policies for terms‚ conditions‚ and exclusions of coverage. Coverage may not be available in all jurisdictions.
* The score you receive with Identity Guard is provided for educational purposes to help you understand your credit. It is calculated using the information contained in your TransUnion credit file. Lenders use many different credit scoring systems, and the score you receive with Identity Guard is not the same score used by lenders to evaluate your credit.
Identity Guard® FAQs
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Is Identity Guard any good?
Overall, we appreciate Identity Guard’s comprehensive features and low prices. However, we have some privacy concerns as a result of the service sharing user information with third parties.
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Which is better, LifeLock or Identity Guard?
We recommend Identity Guard over Lifelock. While plans with both companies start at around $7 to $9 per user per month, Identity Guard uses Watson by IBM, a powerful computing tool, to provide identity theft and credit monitoring. Plus, only Identity Guard can help you remove your information from mailing lists and the dark web.
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What does Identity Guard do?
Identity Guard monitors changes in our credit file as well as our checking and savings accounts. If changes are detected, Identity Guard alerts us through email, SMS, or the Identity Guard Classic app. There are also more cybersecurity features available, like dark web monitoring and anti-phishing software.
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How much does Identity Guard cost?
Identity Guard costs:
Pricing Value Total Ultra Monthly plan for individuals $8.99/month $19.99/month $29.99/month Monthly plan for families $14.99/month $29.99/month $39.99/month Annual plan for individuals $90.00/year $200.00/year $300.00/year Annual plan for families $150.00/year $300.00/year $400.00/year -
Which identity protection tool is best?
Based on our tests, Aura is the best identity protection tool, followed closely by Identity Guard. Both services offer robust identity and credit protections, but Aura simply offers a better user experience. It’s worth pointing out, though, that Aura owns Identity Guard, so whichever service you choose between the two, you’ll be dealing with the same company.
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Where is Identity Guard located?
Identity Guard is located in the United States. That means that they’re under the jurisdiction of the three international surveillance alliances, Five Eyes, Nine Eyes and 14 Eyes. If there’s reasonable cause, the company could be forced to hand over customer information.