Identity Theft Protection - Do You Need It?

We were recently asked our advice about Identity Theft Protection – what should they look for and what should they avoid.

Good news! Identity Theft Protection plans aren't too expensive.

Based on the reading/research we’ve done, and our experience in talking with people that are familiar with the risk here where we live (e.g. we had a police detective come in to talk to us a few years back about identity theft), I would put this type of protection in the "peace of mind" category.  

It doesn't appear that this sort of protection is absolutely necessary based on the risk for most of our clients, but at the same time, we know that often times it helps people to sleep better if they know they have some back up.  

If you decide you want it for peace of mind, we would suggest a family base plan...that should give you adequate coverage.

And there are other things that we recommend for people to make sure they are being smart in protecting their identity/other kinds of fraud:

·        Sign up for some sort of credit monitoring service, e.g. Credit Karma (free), that alerts you if someone tries to open an acct, et al. using your SSN and tracks your credit rating overall (note: often times credit cards have this sort of service, too, as part of our membership mgmt, so you could start by contacting them to see what they offer for free as well)

·        Be watchful in how/when you use any debit cards  - the detective told us that far and away the biggest incidences of fraud that they see is stolen debit card info...the biggest tip for avoiding that was to never use a debit card when you can't see the transaction processed right in front of you.

·        Never respond to or give away personal information over the internet or via email until you have verified, reverified and verified again the entity or portal that is asking for it (this is probably the most common way we know of that people have their information stolen.) A good rule is to run it by someone else before you respond to any inquires for personal information as a sort of check.