Is ID Theft Insurance Worth Recommending to Agency Clients?
National News • October 9, 2008
A client concerned about identity theft might consider moving to the Dakotas.
It's best to stay away, however, from Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, Florida and New York. All of these states ...
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Subject: A rare well-balanced article on identity theft solutions
Posted On: October 10, 2008, 4:04 pm CDT
Posted By: Eric Freedman
Comment:
As a CITRMS professional that works with business clients on a daily basis regarding their data breach exposures and compliance issues, I try to read every identity theft article that google search delivers to me daily. Many are sadly misinformed and/or poorly researched. This article is a refreshingly well balanced, well researched piece.
I would like to reiterate the other commenter's feedback in that Pre-Paid Legal's Identity Theft Shield product does provide full restoration in all areas of identity theft, along with credit monitoring. Full restoration is tough to come by. Most guarantees are similar to Lifelock's in that they are extremely limited in nature. Pre-Paid Legal's is very broad, and serviced by Kroll, a well respected company in the industry. Additionally, access to attorneys is a key piece, especially in non-financial identity thefts such as character, medical, etc. However, it is important to note that the PPL Identity Theft Shield is not identity theft insurance. It does not reimburse for losses, and depends on the financial institutions to make those reimbursements. It also does not provide restoration for children (although a single membership does cover member and spouse/partner, and the legal access can be used to help clear up issues for the children). Ideally, with full restoration, you would hopefully not have any direct financial losses that aren't reimbursable, but this is not always the case. For these reasons, I think that a good case can be made for maintaining both a restoration membership and an insurance program such as the Travelers program mentioned in the article. ID theft insurance products that do not cover direct losses and restrict coverage on indirect losses are, IMHO, nearly worthless. Prevention services that depend on fraud alerts and credit freezes also provide extremely limited value, as they don't prevent non-financial identity theft, and don't prevent existing account fraud.
However, if you maintain a basic Pre-Paid Legal membership with the Identity Theft Shield Gold product (monitors all three bureaus), you pay $29.95/month ($15.95/month without legal access, but the extra $14 is totally worth it for the legal plan). Add $79/year for Travelers product (at $30,000 coverage), and you have good basic legal access for the entire family, first class restoration and monitoring services for member and spouse/partner, and reimbursement insurance for the whole family on direct and indirect expenses for $438/year (about $36.50/month). That's barely a half-tank of gas for some really great services, access, and protection. Similar levels of protection could probably be reached through other combinations of products/services, less the legal access, but I'm biased in that I've had the legal service for years and think it's a great service.
Kudos again to the writer for a great article highlighting the pro's and con's of various ID theft protection products.
Eric Freedman, CITRMS
Subject: A rare well-balanced article on identity theft solutions
I would like to reiterate the other commenter's feedback in that Pre-Paid Legal's Identity Theft Shield product does provide full restoration in all areas of identity theft, along with credit monitoring. Full restoration is tough to come by. Most guarantees are similar to Lifelock's in that they are extremely limited in nature. Pre-Paid Legal's is very broad, and serviced by Kroll, a well respected company in the industry. Additionally, access to attorneys is a key piece, especially in non-financial identity thefts such as character, medical, etc. However, it is important to note that the PPL Identity Theft Shield is not identity theft insurance. It does not reimburse for losses, and depends on the financial institutions to make those reimbursements. It also does not provide restoration for children (although a single membership does cover member and spouse/partner, and the legal access can be used to help clear up issues for the children). Ideally, with full restoration, you would hopefully not have any direct financial losses that aren't reimbursable, but this is not always the case. For these reasons, I think that a good case can be made for maintaining both a restoration membership and an insurance program such as the Travelers program mentioned in the article. ID theft insurance products that do not cover direct losses and restrict coverage on indirect losses are, IMHO, nearly worthless. Prevention services that depend on fraud alerts and credit freezes also provide extremely limited value, as they don't prevent non-financial identity theft, and don't prevent existing account fraud.
However, if you maintain a basic Pre-Paid Legal membership with the Identity Theft Shield Gold product (monitors all three bureaus), you pay $29.95/month ($15.95/month without legal access, but the extra $14 is totally worth it for the legal plan). Add $79/year for Travelers product (at $30,000 coverage), and you have good basic legal access for the entire family, first class restoration and monitoring services for member and spouse/partner, and reimbursement insurance for the whole family on direct and indirect expenses for $438/year (about $36.50/month). That's barely a half-tank of gas for some really great services, access, and protection. Similar levels of protection could probably be reached through other combinations of products/services, less the legal access, but I'm biased in that I've had the legal service for years and think it's a great service.
Kudos again to the writer for a great article highlighting the pro's and con's of various ID theft protection products.
Eric Freedman, CITRMS