Identity Guard ID Theft Protection Review

Features

Identity Guard and services like it are designed to catch telltale signs of identity theft so you can quickly react and mitigate or prevent damage. Identity Guard does that by monitoring credit accounts, the dark web, and news reports and other areas signs of your identity being stolen could pop up.

Key differentiators between identity theft protection services are the speed and quality of alerts. You don’t want a service that takes its sweet time to let you know there’s been suspicious activity in your credit report. You also don’t want a service that floods your inbox with all kinds of alerts about things that probably don’t matter. To truly put Identity Guard to the test, we signed up for the company’s top-tier Ultra protection plan. This package gave us total access to all of Identity Guard’s capabilities, from credit monitoring to identity theft monitoring.

>> Read More: A 2025 Guide to Personal Digital Security & Online Safety

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.

During our tests, we applied for a student loan, and Identity Guard promptly alerted us of activity at one of the major credit bureaus. If we were worried about an individual line of credit, we could have used Identity Guard to put a fraud alert on that credit account, which checks for suspicious activity. Unfortunately, credit and debit card monitoring is only available with the Ultra plan we were testing. Considering the scale of credit card fraud, it’s disappointing that this protection is a premium feature with Identity Guard.

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 gives 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

Identity thieves won’t stop at attacking your credit score. They’ll also try to get a hold of your finances. That means any bank accounts and credit cards in your name. But the thieves won’t stop there. They’ll go after your investments and 401K as well.

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.

Once again, the Value plan offers limited coverage for high-risk transactions. The middle-tier plan expands financial monitoring to include bank accounts. Our Ultra plan was the only one that provided comprehensive coverage, including monitoring credit cards, investment accounts, and retirement accounts.

Identity Protection

When we started setting up our Identity Guard account, we were asked for the information we wanted it to monitor, such as our name, address, birth date, and Social Security Number. Identity Guard then began scanning the internet, the dark web, and anywhere else stolen information shows up. This feature is running 24/7 and alerts us the moment Identity Guard finds something so we can take action.

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.

Identity Guard even provides tips on how to fix the problem. There’s a section titled “What Should You Do?” with a list of steps you can take to reduce the impacts. If it’s your first time dealing with identity theft or data breaches, these tips are invaluable and save you Googling for suggestions.

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.

Identity Guard offers to reimburse up to $1 million in losses to customers who suffer an identity theft. Those losses could include stolen funds, legal fees, and personal expenses. While $1 million identity theft protection sounds like a lot, it’s actually the industry standard. There are some plans from companies like LifeLock and McAfee that offer more, up to $3 million in the case of LifeLock.

If you’re on the Ultra plan, Identity Guard will also assign you a dedicated case manager to resolve the case. They’ll send letters and file disputes to your credit card companies on your behalf. This service is a time-saver and another reason to consider upgrading to the Ultra plan.

Identity Guard Identity Theft Protection Features

Privacy and Security

When we were signing up for Identity Guard, we were thinking, “Boy, they are collecting a lot of our sensitive, personal information.” That got us thinking about the famous quote from bank robber Willie Sutton, who said he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is.” The idea that Identity Guard keeps our personal information is a big reason why we took a close look at the company’s data security and privacy policies.

As for guarding against data breaches, Identity Guard uses robust security measures to your data stored on its servers. It encrypts all data using “military-grade” 256-bit AES bit encryption.Also, Identity Guard doesn’t share any information with third-parties unless absolutely necessary. For example, if you receive a scam call, Identity Guard may share your phone number with relevant government agencies such as the FCC and CFPB.

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.

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 offers a significant discount for the first year of a subscription if you pay all of it upfront. Monthly, an individual plan with basic protection costs $8.99, but the upper plans can actually range up to $29.99 per month as they get more comprehensive. That said, you can sign up for your first year and save as much as $8 per month. The first-year individual plans, paid all upfront, average out to between $6.67 and $17.99 per month.

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 first-year plans, as low as $10 to $23.99 per month if the year is paid upfront.

Here’s a breakdown of Identity Guard’s regular prices and features for the three plans available: Value, Total, and Ultra.

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.

There are three Identity Guard plans to choose from – Value, Total, and Ultra. We chose the Ultra plan as it has the most coverage and was only $29.99 per month or $17.99 per month when paid annually for individuals. For families, it’s $39.99 per month or $23.99 per month when you pay for a year upfront.

All plans come with $1 million in identity theft insurance, so you don’t need to pay for the most expensive subscription for this protection. But you will need the Total or Ultra plan for bank account monitoring, three-bureau credit monitoring, and a monthly credit score check.

Identity Guard doesn’t have a free trial like Aura, but it does come with a 60-day money-back guarantee. Unfortunately, it’s the closest thing to a free trial for Identity Guard you’ll get.

We appreciated Identity Guard’s 60-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.