Identity Guard^® Review: Pros, Cons, and Plan Details

Identity Guard^® offers decent protection from identity theft, but it doesn’t make credit monitoring a priority. Overall, it’s too pricey for the level of coverage you get.

Overview

Identity Guard primarily notifies you of unusual or suspicious activity that may indicate fraud and helps protect you from identity theft. At its higher tiers, it can help you monitor your credit too. Still, we don’t think it’s comprehensive enough, considering its high price. If you want a brand that offers more coverage and a higher value, we like IdentityForce.

>>Compare IdentityForce vs. Identity Guard

If you don’t mind paying a higher price, or if you want to focus only on identity protection and get the perks of artificial intelligence (AI) monitoring your data, read on.

Identity Guard pros and cons

Price

Identity Guard is on the pricier side, but it has decent identity fraud protection. All plans offer Social Security number and dark web monitoring, access to your risk management score, and up to $1 million in reimbursement with identity theft insurance.

Identity Guard also offers upgraded family plans, which cover all adults and children living in one household.

Value Plan

At $8.99/month for an individual or $14.99/month for a household, Identity Guard’s Value Plan offers some good, basic identity theft prevention. It’ll get you a $1 million insurance policy in case of identity theft, and it will skim the dark web to see if it detects things like your driver’s license or credit card numbers.

We recommend this level if you just want to casually keep track of your identity but don’t need many features beyond that.

While you could outsource credit monitoring to a free or inexpensive service like Credit Sesame, we think it’s better to have one company that does at least a little bit of both.

What you get

• $1 million insurance with stolen funds reimbursement
• Dark web monitoring
• Risk management score

Total Plan

At $19.99/month for an individual and $29.99/month for a family, the Identity Guard Total Plan adds basic credit monitoring. It also adds bank account monitoring, which alerts you of any changes to your checking, savings, or IRA accounts so you can stay a step ahead of financial fraud.

This is a solid option if you want to monitor your credit somewhat but are looking mostly to protect your identity.

What you get

• Everything from the Value Plan
• Three-bureau credit monitoring
• Monthly credit score from one bureau
• Bank account monitoring
• Address monitoring

Premier Plan

The Premier Plan—$24.99/month for individuals and $34.99/month for families—isn’t too different from Identity Guard’s Total Plan, but it adds an annual credit report on request from all three major credit bureaus and a social insight report. That report analyzes your Facebook timeline to assess your online image and recommend actions to improve it, helping you or your kids be a bit savvier online.

At the Family level, you’ll also get alerted if Watson detects text patterns indicative of cyberbullying. You’ll be able to review the flagged content and connect with the Megan Meier Foundation for help with next steps on protecting your children. It’s a nice bonus if you’re worried about your children’s online activity.

What you get

• Everything from the Total Plan
• Annual three-bureau credit report
• Social insight report
• Cyberbullying alerts (family plan only)

Identity Guard features

Identity Guard has a solid insurance policy—up to $1 million—to help cover restoration costs in case you find yourself a victim of identity theft. It also has a hotline you can call to speak with a case officer who can answer any questions about identity fraud. Besides that, Identity Guard doesn’t provide much in reparations when it comes to recovering your identity.

Still, as one of only a few identity theft protection services that offer family plans, Identity Guard stands out.

Identity Guard family plan

Identity Guard’s family plans cover all adults and children living in a household, and the Premium level includes cyberbullying alerts with details of detected content and guidance on next steps you can take if your child experiences cyberbullying.

The upgraded family plans are pricey though. At the higher two tiers, the family plans cost $10 more per month than the individual plans. And compared to some of our top picks for best credit monitoring and identity theft protection services, Identity Guard’s individual plans are already a bit expensive to begin with.

Safe browsing

Identity Guard goes the extra mile, offering a browser extension with all its plans to scan the sites you’re browsing and protect you against phishing scams. It’s not as robust as a full-blown antivirus software, but it’ll at least warn you when you reach a site that might want to swipe your identity.

Customer service

We scoured the web for customer reviews of Identity Guard and found that for the most part, customers are happy with Identity Guard’s services. Customers say that the Watson AI gives Identity Guard an advantage, especially when it comes to early detection. They also like that with six plans total, there’s an option for everyone.

Availability

Identity Guard’s customer service is available via telephone 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET on Saturdays. They are closed on Sundays.

What customers are saying about Identity Guard

Although most customers are satisfied, some users say that Identity Guard’s prices are too high for the services included. Identity Guard also may make a lot of calls offering to upgrade your service.

Our recommendation

Identity Guard offers good identity theft protection, but ultimately its service is too expensive and not extensive enough when it comes to credit monitoring. We prefer a service that does a little bit of both.

If you’re looking for a service that will help protect your identity and keep track of your credit, we recommend IdentityForce. IdentityForce offers both identity protection and credit monitoring at an affordable, midrange price.

If your focus is more on protecting your identity, we recommend the supremely budget-friendly Zander. Zander focuses primarily on insurance rather than monitoring, but affordable insurance can be a win if you can’t afford traditional identity theft protection.