Identity Theft Protection

Identity Theft Protection

February 1, 2016

Identity Theft is NO Joke

As I mentioned countless times on Facebook, identity theft is a big deal. And because of this, several insurance companies have started to cash in (so to speak) on this type of theft.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for buying identity theft protection to protect you and your family as long as they actually do what they claim to do and for a great price. But who do you pick? Which one is the right one for you? Well, I found 4 insurance companies that claim they have an identity theft protection program. These companies are LifeLock™, Zander™, MetLife™, and Progressive™. Now there may be more companies out there that provide identity theft protection, these are just the ones I came up with. If your insurance company you have your home and auto policies through have an identity theft protection program and they’re not listed here, you may want to check them out to see what they offer.

Now, I only asked these companies 5 questions. These are the same 5 questions I would be most concerned with if I was in the market to buy one of these products. The questions are…

• Do they have credit monitoring?
• Do they have guarantees? If so, what are they and what do they cover?
• What is the cost for singles and/or household protection (meaning minors)?
• What kind of identity theft does it cover?
• What happens if my I.D. is stolen?

Credit Monitoring and Guarantees

To make this as simple as possible, all but one of these companies has credit monitoring. Zander™ was the only one that didn’t and I will get to the reason why they don’t later on. Also, all these companies have at least a $1 million dollar guarantee. The only one that didn’t have the million dollar guarantee was the MetLife™ Defender program, they have a $5 million guarantee.

How these credit monitoring programs work is, you give these companies all your information, social security numbers, banking information, credit card information, etc… and they plug that information into their systems to see if any of your information comes up in places that shouldn’t be there or if they see some unusual charges, or canceling or starting up accounts in your name, they will contact you to see if it is really you doing all that. The reason Zander™ doesn’t do credit monitoring is because there is NOT a 100% fool proof system that can prevent identity theft from happening no matter how good someone’s system is. There are just too many holes for an identity thief to sneak through. So Zander™ focuses more on restoring your I.D. to a pre-theft status. More on that later on.

The guarantees DON’T mean that if your I.D. is stolen while under these programs, you’re going to be receiving a million dollar check. That money is used to help cover any EXTRA costs due to external services to help restore your I.D. such as attorney costs and any out of pocket cost you may accrue, just to name a couple. Truthfully, there are slight differences between all 4 companies, but they are all for covering reasonably costs due to extra services needed to restore your I.D.

How much do these Programs Cost?

Truthfully, these prices were all over the place, and not all of them covered minors or had a price for covering the whole household. Most of these companies did have monthly plans that people could pay, but it was cheaper to buy these products yearly, and that’s what I’m going to focus on in this blog.

Out of the 4 companies, MetLife™ was the most expensive. For an individual it was $245 per year. For a household that covered 2 adults and all children under the age of 26 was $495 per year.

LifeLock™ was the second most expensive. They had several different levels of protection programs you could choose from, but their Ultimate Plus™ program (which covered everything they offered) was $329 per year and they did not have a household plan.

Progressive™ was next with their Progressive Advantage℠ Identity Theft Protection, which was $159.95 per year. And again, this was for all individuals. No household plan.

And lastly, Zander™ came in at $75 per year for individuals and their household plan that covered everyone (including children up to the ages of 25) for $145 per year.

What do they Cover?

Again, all 4 companies cover just about the same thing. Personal data, financial, medical, etc… just to name a few. Some companies were slightly different by offering some bells and whistles, like MetLife™ has an online child protection program that monitors for cyber-bullying, child predators, and child I.D. theft. Others also offer you a free credit report each year. But other than that, they all cover the same types of identity theft.

What happens if Your I.D. is Stolen?

Once again, they all pretty much do the same thing, except for 2 of them. If they find in issue, they will get a hold of you to verify if what they are seeing is you or not. If it’s not you, they will deal with the issue. The 2 exceptions were from Zander™ and Progressive™.


Zander™ assigns a caseworker to your claim and does absolutely ALL the work for you. All the phone calls, paperwork, etc… and they will continue to work your case until your I.D. is restored to its pre-theft status. No matter how long it takes or how expensive it gets.


Progressive™ assigns an Experian™ (yes, the credit bureau) agent to your case to help and assist you. They don’t do it for you.

My Conclusion

All of these programs sound good on the surface. All the monitoring, coverage, guarantees, and restorations sound like you’re getting a lot for your buck. The thing is, most of that stuff you can do on your own for free, by watching all your accounts (banks and credit cards). This is a must anyway, regardless if you have monitoring protection or not. You can also pull a free credit report each year from all 3 bureaus without paying for someone to do it for you. This is just a few things that caught my eye right away. The ONLY thing that really concerns me is “What happens if my I.D. is stolen?” and “What’s the cost?” and with that narrowed down, the true choice for me and my family was Zander™ and we have used Zander™ for a few years now. It just makes more sense to me. Now you may not agree with me on this and that’s fine. You all have to do what is best for your family’s needs and you should really look into this far more in depth than what I posted in this blog. Remember, identity theft is no joke and the problem is only getting worse, not better. You need to look into this and get some sort of protection for you and your family. I look forward to reading your thoughts on this matter so please share them below.