IdentityIQ Review

Features

IdentityIQ has built a solid reputation for comprehensive protection, so let’s dive into what they actually deliver and see if the features match the promise.

Credit Monitoring

IdentityIQ’s credit monitoring covered all the three major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. It monitored our credit on a daily basis, alerting us of unexpected changes and activities that were out of the ordinary. It’s worth mentioning, though, that three-bureau credit monitoring is only available with the Secure Pro and Secure Max plans. Those in the lower-tier plans only get one-bureau monitoring.

On top of that, IdentityIQ checked for signs of credit fraud, such as:

• Change of personal information or address
• Delinquent credit accounts
• New inquiries, public records, and court judgments involving our account
• New loans and credit lines

Credit monitoring of such extent is, of course, normal for an identity theft protection service. However, IdentityIQ’s enhanced credit monitoring also alerted us to less obvious changes that might indicate credit fraud. For example, we got an alert when we added a new authorized user to our credit card, just in case a fraudster made the change. The system also tracks subtle red flags like changes in collection balances, closed trade lines, and retail or bank cards that exceed their limits – the kind of details that often slip under the radar but can signal serious problems.

Now, to get this level of comprehensive monitoring, you’ll need to hand over substantial personal information to IdentityIQ. Yes, it’s time-consuming and requires significant trust in their security measures. But if you’re serious about protection, this trade-off is worth considering.

Identity Monitoring

IndentityIQ looked into non-credit-related areas and data points for signs of fraud, such as the dark web and public records.

• Dark web: The service continuously scans hidden corners of the internet where cybercriminals operate marketplaces for stolen data. It searches for your Social Security number, name, address, and other personal information being traded or sold in these underground forums.
• Criminal records: It monitored national and international criminal records for arrests and convictions connected to our names and birthdays. This would help us clear our names if someone posing as us was arrested or convicted, which happens more than you might think.
• SSN trace: It alerted us whenever someone used our Social Security number every time, not just when it was used with a wrong name or address. So if someone already got hold of our personal information, we’d still know if they used it to commit fraud.
• Change of address: It monitored change of address requests, both with credit reporting agencies and the National Change of Address registry.

Identity Restoration

As you can probably tell, IdentityIQ focuses on detecting identity theft, which means by the time it alerts you of a possible issue, your identity has already fallen into the wrong hands. That’s when their restoration services kick in – and honestly, this is where many services fall short. In case you experience identity theft, IdentityIQ will help you restore your life in order. A dedicated case manager will help you put together an action plan and help you see it through. Plus, IdentityIQ’s restoration team is based in the U.S., so you can trust that you’ll get high-quality service.

Insurance

Identity restoration often requires legal assistance, and with attorney fees averaging $300 to $500 per hour, the costs can spiral quickly. That’s where IdentityIQ’s $1 million identity theft insurance coverage comes in, which would cover direct and indirect losses such as:

• Funds stolen through electronic fund transfers from our bank account
• Legal fees and expenses
• Miscellaneous expenses
• Up to $1,500 weekly up to five weeks for wages lost

While the best identity theft protection services we’ve reviewed also offer up to $1 million insurance coverage, not all of them cover legal fees. That’s one of the best things we liked about IdentityIQ.

Family Coverage

According to research, more than 1 million minors fell victim to child identity theft in 2017.2 So if you think identity theft is only an adult problem, think again. Fortunately, IdentityIQ offers free family insurance coverage up to $25,000 to Secure Max plan accounts. This insurance covers the children of the account owner for as long as they are living at the same address. The age limit is 24 years old, so even young adults benefit from this provision.

While this insurance doesn’t count as a full identity theft protection for families, it’s certainly a nice addition. IdentityIQ does offer a comprehensive subscription option for families, in case you want more protection.

Our IdentityIQ Dashboard

Let’s get practical about what using IdentityIQ actually feels like day-to-day. We accessed our dashboard through the IdentityIQ website. It offered a quick summary of our credit, identity, and score monitoring alerts. It also featured a report of our current scores from the three credit bureaus. We found the sidebar particularly helpful, as it lists all plan features. We checked this section regularly to identify gaps in our protection.

On the account details page, we easily updated our personal information, password, and security questions as well as managed our plan. The page also gave us easy access to our monthly credit report, monitoring and alerts, and other features to strengthen our identity protection. For example, if we had children (which we don’t), we could click on the “family protection” link to add them to our family coverage.

The desktop experience is genuinely intuitive. Everything sits where you’d expect it. The same goes for the mobile apps, which have great ratings (4.9 stars) on both the App Store and Google Play Store.

The Cost of IdentityIQ’s Protection

IdentityIQ’s pricing model was easy to understand. As the price increases, so does the number of features and benefits. The Secure Max plan, which is what we tested, offers the most features, while the Secure Basic plan offers only the basics. The malware protection is courtesy of Bitdefender, which you can read about in our Bitdefender antivirus review. Just note that it’s an additional $2 per month.

You’ve got flexibility in payment options – go month-to-month if you want to test the waters, or commit to an annual plan for roughly 15% savings. Just remember that annual plans lock you in, so maybe start monthly until you’re sure it’s the right fit.

Privacy and Security

When we signed up for an IdentityIQ subscription, the first step required us to provide basic personal information like our name and billing address. Later on, it asked us to provide our SSN, birthdate, and payment information. These are the digital equivalent of your house keys, and you’re handing them over and trusting IdentityIQ to keep them safe. So before we completed the process, we checked IdentityIQ’s privacy policy. First, we learned that it collects and stores all personal data customers provide. The name, address, birthdate, SSN, credit card numbers, everything! Of course, that’s understandable because IdentityIQ also uses that information for credit and identity monitoring.

Things got murky when we noticed that their privacy policy is vague about data protection specifics. It mentions that IdentityIQ uses its “best efforts to protect and restrict access” to our data, but it didn’t mention how. The only solid information we got was that the company uses SSL encryption technology on its website.

Last but not least, we checked how IdentityIQ uses the information it collects. As expected, it shares personal data of customers with service providers necessary for IdentityIQ’s purposes. These service providers are under a written contract with IdentityIQ. On top of that, since it’s based in the U.S., IdentityIQ may be required by law to share customer data with the government. That’s because the U.S. is part of the Five Eyes alliance.

We’re concerned that IdentityIQ openly admits to sharing your information with third parties for promotional purposes. That’s right – the company protecting you from identity theft is also potentially making you a target for marketers. To their credit, we dug deep into IdentityIQ’s track record and found no major data breaches or privacy scandals. That’s a good sign, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that our data is secure, so we advise you to proceed at your own risk.