Best identity theft protection services of November 2023
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BLUEPRINT
Updated 12:51 p.m. UTC Nov. 1, 2023
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Identity thieves have become increasingly sophisticated in how they target and take advantage of their victims, and consumers can use all the help they can get to protect against fraud and resolve it quickly when it happens. The best identity theft protection services offer comprehensive protection that includes credit monitoring, insurance protection, strong security and more. However, to get service you can trust, you typically need to pay for it.
We analyzed the top identity theft protection services in this category, from a variety of issuers, to curate a list of the very best.
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Aura Individual
: Best identity theft protection services
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Norton 360 with LifeLock Ultimate Plus Individual
: Best for comprehensive individual coverage
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Aura Family
: Best for large families
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Aura Couple
: Best for couples without children
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Allstate Premier Individual
: Best for full-service remediation
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McAfee+ Advanced Family
: Best for families on a budget
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Norton 360 with LifeLock Ultimate Plus Family
: Best for comprehensive family coverage
Aura Individual
Best identity theft protection services of November 2023
Aura Individual
Norton 360 with LifeLock Ultimate Plus Individual
Aura Family
Aura Couple
Allstate Premier Individual
McAfee+ Advanced Family
Norton 360 with LifeLock Ultimate Plus Family
Compare the best identity theft protection services
Best identity theft protection services: Aura Individual
Plan highlights
Aura offers all-in-one protection that includes three-bureau credit monitoring without an upsell, $1 million in identity theft insurance coverage and quick fraud alerts — according to the company, it’s up to 250 times faster than the competition in notifying you of potential identity theft although we weren’t able to verify that. Other notable features include antivirus protection, a virtual private network (VPN), a password manager, identity monitoring and financial account monitoring.
Price: $12/mo or $108 if billed annually.
ID theft insurance: $1 million.
Credit bureau monitoring: All three.
Best for for comprehensive individual coverage: Norton 360 with LifeLock Ultimate Plus Individual
Plan highlights
If you want maximum insurance coverage, the Ultimate Plus Individual plan from LifeLock is a strong choice. You’ll get separate $1 million limits for stolen funds reimbursement, personal expense compensation and coverage for lawyers and experts. The plan also includes three-bureau credit monitoring, financial account alerts that include investment accounts, home title monitoring and more.
Costs: $29.99 monthly for the first year, then $34.99 after that; $299.88 annually for the first year, then $349.99 after that.
ID theft insurance: Up to $3 million, including $1 million each for stolen funds. reimbursement, personal expense compensation and coverage for lawyers and experts.
Credit bureau monitoring: All three.
Best for large families: Aura Family
Plan highlights
Most identity theft protection services offer family plans, but Aura is the only one on our list that doesn’t limit how many children you can include. You can also add up to five adults to your plan, and each will get $1 million in identity theft insurance coverage. In addition to all of the features of the individual plan, Aura Family also includes parental controls for mobile devices.
Price: $32/mo or $240 if billed annually.
ID theft insurance: Up to $5 million, including $1 million each for stolen funds. reimbursement, personal expense compensation and coverage for lawyers and experts.
Credit bureau monitoring: All three.
Best for couples without children: Aura Couple
Plan highlights
Many of the best identity theft protection services offer only individual and family plans. With Aura, there’s a middle option designed for just two adults. With Aura Couple, each adult will get $1 million in identity theft insurance, along with all of the features of the Aura Individual plan at a slightly lower cost than what you’d pay for two individual plans.
Costs: $20/mo or $204 if billed annually.
ID theft insurance: Up to $2 million ($1 million per adult).
Credit bureau monitoring: All three.
Best for full-service remediation: Allstate Premier Individual
Plan highlights
If you become a victim of identity theft, Allstate manages the entire recovery process from start to finish. In addition to up to $1 million in expense coverage, the plan also provides stolen funds reimbursement, including up to $50,000 for your health savings account and 401(k) account. You’ll also get monitoring of all of your financial accounts to help you detect any potential fraud, your digital footprint and the dark web for potential threats.
Price: $17.99 per month.
ID theft insurance: $1 million plus stolen funds reimbursement.
Credit bureau monitoring: All three.
Best for families on a budget: McAfee+ Advanced Family
Plan highlights
If you want coverage for your family, but you can’t afford the Aura and LifeLock family plans, McAfee+ Advanced Family may be a good fit. It’s a more basic option with credit monitoring for just one credit bureau, but you’ll get $1 million in identity theft insurance coverage for each adult, and you can add up to four children to the plan. Other features include financial account monitoring, lost wallet protection, VPN access, parental controls on mobile devices and more.
Price: $109.99 for the first year, then $269.99 after that.
ID theft insurance: Up to $2 million ($1 million per adult).
Family plan: Yes.
Best for comprehensive family coverage: Norton 360 with LifeLock Ultimate Plus Family
Plan highlights
The Ultimate Plus Family plan from LifeLock offers all of the same features as the individual plan, but for two adults instead of one. It also includes up to $25,000 in stolen funds reimbursement for each child — you can add up to five to the plan — as well as credit file detection for the children. Identity and Social Security number alerts are available for all family members.
Plan : $48.99 monthly for the first year, then $81.99 after that; or choose $491.88 annually for the first year, then $819.99 after that.
ID theft insurance: Up to $3 million per adult, including $1 million each for including stolen funds reimbursement, personal expense compensation and coverage for lawyers and experts.
Family plan: Yes.
What do identity theft protection services do?
Identity theft protection services monitor a variety of websites and databases for any indication that your personal information has been stolen or used. In particular, you may receive a notification if your information has been shows up on one of the following:
- The dark web (this is an area of the internet that is intentionally hidden from public access and requires special software to access).
- Social media.
- Loan or credit card applications.
- New bank accounts.
- Court or arrest records.
- U.S. Post Office address change requests.
The best identity theft protection services may also offer credit monitoring services. If your personal information is stolen and used without your authorization, you’ll typically get ID theft insurance, which can cover legal and related fees associated with restoring your identity, as well as recovery services to guide you along the way.
How to spot and prevent identity theft
There are three different types of identity theft, and it’s important to know how each one works, so you can spot the signs early on.
Financial identity theft
The most common form of identity theft, this type may involve any aspect of your financial situation, including:
- Using your Social Security number to open a new credit card, loan or bank account.
- Stealing your credit card information and using it without your permission.
- Accessing your bank or investment accounts and making unauthorized withdrawals or transfers.
- Filing a fraudulent tax return to receive a refund.
In some cases, you may not be aware that you’ve been a victim of financial identity theft until you receive a notice about a new account you didn’t open, a statement for a financial account you don’t recognize, unauthorized charges on a bank account or credit card or a notice of a duplicate tax return.
Here are some steps you can take to prevent financial identity theft:
- Safeguard your Social Security number and avoid sharing it with anyone. Some ways to do this include locking your Social Security card in a filing cabinet or safe and never sending your SSN over email, text or message.
- Use different passwords for each financial account and a password manager to keep track of them (Note: the best password managers typically come at a cost of around $50 per year).
- Set up two-factor authentication or biometric (think face or fingerprint) authentication on all of your accounts and mobile apps.
- Review your financial account transactions regularly — once a week is a good cadence to shoot for.
- Consider setting up alerts for charges on your credit cards and bank account.
- Request electronic statements instead of having paper statements mailed to you. Identity thieves may steal your mail and use information like your name and address to build a profile to fraudulently open accounts in your name.
- Watch out for phishing emails and text messages, which may appear to come from a reputable source but can steal your information.
- Review your three credit reports from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion regularly.
- File your tax return early.
Medical identity theft
This type of identity theft occurs when a fraudster uses your personal information to access medical services, such as a visit to the doctor, prescription drugs or even an insurance claim.
You may become aware of medical identity theft if you receive a bill or an insurance claim for medical services you never received and don’t recognize. If this occurs, contact your insurance company and the medical provider immediately to report the fraud and learn about the steps you can take to avoid having to deal with the costs.
You can prevent medical identity theft by safeguarding your Social Security number and medical records, and watching out for phishing emails and scam phone calls asking for your medical information.
Online identity theft
Social media platforms are a mainstay in American society, but if you’re not careful, cybercriminals can use the information you share to steal personal information or to perpetuate fraud in your name.
To prevent online identity theft, take these steps:
- Make your social media profiles private, so only your friends and family members can view key information about you.
- Avoid oversharing, particularly when it comes to personal details.
- Only accept social media follow and friend requests from people you know and trust.
- Avoid using location services to highlight places you frequently visit.
Is identity theft protection right for you?
You may consider paying for identity theft protection if you’ve been a victim of identity theft, or you believe you’re at a high risk of becoming a victim due to a recent data breach or other event. It can also be worth it if you don’t have the time to keep track of everything on your own and need some help.
Before you opt for identity theft protection, however, make sure you can fit the cost into your budget.
Identity theft protection vs. Credit monitoring
While identity theft and credit monitoring share the game goal — to protect you from identity thieves — identity theft goes above and beyond what you’ll get with a basic credit monitoring service. In fact, many of the best identity theft protection services include credit monitoring in one form of another in their plans.
But while credit monitoring only includes information related to your credit scores and credit reports, identity theft protection provides more comprehensive monitoring, which may include all of your financial accounts, dark web scans and more.
Additionally, identity theft protection services may also provide resources and insurance in the event that someone manages to steal and use your personal information.
Choosing the best identity theft protection service
There’s no single best identity theft protection service for everyone, so it’s important for you to understand your situation and needs to determine the best fit for you. Here are some factors to consider as you shop around and compare your options:
- Your budget: ID theft protection services charge varying subscription rates, depending on the plan tier you choose. Consider how much you can afford to pay each month without putting a strain on your financial situation and what you’d get with your budget.
- Plan options: Depending on which type of plan you’re looking for—whether you want identity theft protection for yourself, for you and your spouse or for your entire family— some ID theft protection services may be better suited to your needs than others.
- Features: Take a look at the different features each service provides to find the best fit. For example, some may offer you access to your FICO score, which is widely used by major lenders, while others may provide a VantageScore, which uses a different formula to calculate your score. There may also be varying levels of ID theft insurance, alerts and depth of monitoring.
Methodology
Our team has spent hours analyzing identity theft protection companies and their plans. We took a deep dive into the details of each product and that analysis, combined with our years of experience covering this topic informed us as we developed these rankings. We considered the following attributes when ranking company plans:
- Price, including any discounts for paying yearly vs. monthly.
- Free trials to test a plan out.
- ID theft insurance coverage amount.
- Credit bureau monitoring and if the plan covered 1,2 or all 3 bureaus.
- Any and all other types of identity-related protections like bank account monitoring, home title monitoring, social media account monitoring etc.
There are many different ways you can determine that your identity has been stolen, but the signs can depend on the type of identity theft. Here are some of the most common indicators that someone has managed to steal and use your personal information without your knowledge or permission:
- Your credit score has dropped suddenly and significantly.
- Your loan or credit card application was denied for reasons that don’t make sense to you.
- You’ve received information about an account opened in your name that you don’t recognize.
- You’ve received notification from a company you do business with that your information has been stolen in a data breach.
- You’re receiving calls from a creditor or debt collector about a debt that doesn’t belong to you.
- You’ve received medical bills for services or prescription drugs that you didn’t receive or use.
- The IRS notifies you of a duplicate tax return when you try to file yours.
There’s no surefire way to prevent identity theft in all of its forms, but there are some steps you can take to make it more difficult for scammers to access your personal information for nefarious purposes. Here are some things you can do to get started:
- Use complex passwords and a separate password for each of your online accounts.
- Make sure a website is secure before providing any information online — the web address should start with HTTPS and not HTTP.
- Watch out for phishing emails, which may appear to be from a reputable company but may ask for personal information or ask that you open a link or an attachment that can install malware on your device.
- Use multifactor authentication and biometric authentication to safeguard your online accounts and mobile apps.
- Use a passcode for your mobile devices.
- Consider using antivirus and malware protection software on your computer.
- Use a virtual private network (VPN) when transmitting personal data on a public Wi-Fi network.
The cost of identity theft protection can vary depending on which company and plan you choose. In general, though, you can expect to pay anywhere from about $10 to $80 per month, depending on the company and tier.
In many cases, identity theft protection services also include credit monitoring. However, depending on which plan you choose, you may not have full access to your credit reports and scores. Your can request your credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com — the official site for requesting your free annual credit report. Be aware that since onset of the pandemic, the credit bureaus are offer free credit reports weekly (rather than annually) through 2023.
Another free option is to visit each of the bureaus’ websites (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) to request copies of your credit report.
Depending on how thorough you want your credit monitoring to be with an id theft protection company, shop around and compare the top options to find the best fit for you.
¹$1,000,000 Identity Theft Insurance for Eligible Losses: 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.
²Free Trial Offer: Offer valid for new customers only and free trial offer can only be redeemed once per customer. Full access to plan features depends on identity verification and credit eligibility. You will be billed the relevant fees for your selected services after expiration of your free trial on an auto-renewal basis, unless you cancel your free trial at least 24 hours prior to the expiration.
³60-day Money-Back Guarantee: 60-day money back guarantee is only available for our annual plans purchased through our websites or via our Customer Support team. You may cancel your membership online and request a refund within 60 days of your initial purchase date of an eligible Aura membership purchase either through your Aura Account Membership portal or by calling us at 1-855-712-0021. If you signed up for Aura through a free trial, then your membership purchase date will be the date you signed up for your free trial, and you will have 60 days from the date you signed up for your free trial to cancel and request a refund. If you switched to a new annual plan within 60 days of your initial Aura annual subscription, you may still qualify for the Money Back Guarantee (based upon your initial annual plan purchase date).
⁴Child members on the family plan will only have access to online account monitoring and social security number monitoring features. All adult members get all the listed benefits.
No one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions effectively.
Blueprint is an independent publisher and comparison service, not an investment advisor. The information provided is for educational purposes only and we encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding specific financial decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Blueprint has an advertiser disclosure policy. The opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the Blueprint editorial staff alone. Blueprint adheres to strict editorial integrity standards. The information is accurate as of the publish date, but always check the provider’s website for the most current information.
