Identity theft protection: Worth it?

[AliInKY]

A voluntary benefit my employer is offering for 2018 is identity theft protection.  There is a monthly fee of $9.95 (individual) or $17.95 (family).  My gut says don't do it but I wanted to hear some feedback from fellow Mustachians.  Thanks!

[SC93]

There is only 1 company that actually makes it worth it that I know of. All most companies do is say .... Yep, someone just screwed you.... good luck! Our company will actually do all the work if we have any trouble at all.

[Fomerly known as something]

My day job can deal with investigating ID theft, NO.  The answer is no.  Many credit card companies now provide you with an on demand credit report which allows you to see if there is anything that is strange on your report, freeze your credit reports and keep your own eye on your open accounts is more effective than any ID theft insurance and is not on a monthly payment. 

[C-note]

Freeze your credit.

I would be wary of any service that requires you to input your sensitive data into their system for monitoring purposes.  What if the monitoring service gets hacked?

Agree. 

Ours have been frozen for over 15 years.  We've had to thaw a few times but find the fee to thaw worth the comfort of the reports being frozen - and we get our credit score through our VISA account.    In our state, freezing is free - thawing is $10 per person per reporting agency.  In one instance, the company let us know the reporting agency they'd check so we only had to thaw that one.  Rates for freezing and thawing vary by state.

[Raj]

I'm agreeing with the others, paying attention to all of your credit reports and open accounts is more useful than any identify theft protection.

Just make sure you also use your once a year free credit report from the various credit industry to make sure no one is using your name in order to open up various accounts.

[BlueMR2]

A local FBI agent who deals in that type of thing was heading up a roundtable I was in recently.   He noted that it doesn't offer anything that you can't do yourself (if you're able to come up with the time to deal with it, should the worst happen).

My thoughts are that it may be easier for a reputable company to clean up that mess than an individual, but the individual has a lot more incentive.  As others have noted, it does expose one even more to give the necessary info to the protection company...

[AliInKY]

Thanks for the insight, everyone.  We will not be taking advantage of this optional coverage, which I suspect was a bone thrown in because in 2018 our premiums and deductibles will go up, company-provided life insurance will decrease, and the 401k match will also decrease.  Not surprising, but disappointing.