Identity Guard, a top-rated identity theft plan, is offering discounts for new customers

Identity Guard® is offering a promotion for new customers.

Here are the three annual plans that are discounted:

1. Value plan: $6.67 per month for individual (regularly $8.99), billed annually
2. Total plan: $13.33 per month for individual (regularly $19.99), billed annually
3. Ultra plan: $20.00 per month for individual (regularly $29.99), billed annually

Identity Guard is included on Select's list of the best identity theft protection services thanks to the wide variety of benefits it provides customers. (You can read more about our methodology below.)

All three plans provide identity theft insurance up to $1 million and offer a variety of privacy tools that help reduce telemarketing calls, junk mail and more. Plus, Identity Guard uses IBM® Watson®™ artificial intelligence to monitor and process information that can alert you to potentially suspicious activity on your accounts. The AI program scans the web 24/7 for your data and information to make sure that it's not being used by anyone other than you.

While the Value plan doesn't offer credit monitoring, the Total and Ultra plans monitor your credit reports from each of the three main credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.

Identity theft can be an expensive problem to fix. According to Security.org, more than two-thirds (70%) of identity theft victims spend $300 on average to resolve the issue. From Jan. 1, 2020 to May 20, 2021, the median loss from Covid-related identity thefts was up to $350.

If you were to sign up for Identity Guard's highest tiered Ultra annual plan with the discount, the total would come to $240 billed annually for the individual plan. This is a lower cost than the average losses you may incur by if you're a victim of identity theft.

While these services can't prevent identity theft, the insurance can help you resolve and recoup any expenses that result. And the credit monitoring and dark web scanning can alert you early if your information is compromised.

Identity theft is an increasing issue that millions of Americans face — even more so during the last year of a pandemic.

New research finds that over 20 million U.S. adults had their identities stolen in 2020, which is a 67% increase from 2019. Overall, nearly one-third (32%) of U.S. adults have been a victim of identity fraud, and that number has grown more than 45% over the past year.

Identity theft is generally when a scammer steals your personal information: things like your full name, birthday, home address or Social Security number. They can then use that information to apply for credit cards in your name, or even take your unemployment benefits.

While there's no way to completely protect yourself from identity theft, you can help mitigate the damage with a monitoring tool like Identity Guard.

Identity theft protection services, like Identity Guard, monitor websites and databases for signs of your personal information, such as your Social Security number, driver's license number, medical ID and bank account numbers. They then alert you if this sensitive information appears on a variety of sites, including:

• Dark web
• Social media
• USPS address change requests
• Court or arrest records
• Orders for new utility, cable or wireless services
• Payday loan applications
• Check cashing requests

In addition to signing up for an identity theft protection service, keep your personal information safe by not giving it to strangers online or over the phone. Be just as cautious on social media and refrain from even adding your birthday to your social accounts.

To determine which identity theft protection services offer the most benefits to consumers, Select analyzed and compared over a dozen services that offer a variety of plans.

When ranking the best identity theft protection services, we focused on the following features:

• Cost: Typically, these services bill monthly but some have deals where you can pay annually.
• Identity theft insurance: We considered whether the services offered identity theft insurance and looked at the amount you're covered up to. We found that the best services offer up to $1 million for eligible expenses associated with resolving and restoring your identity.
• Wide variety of identity monitoring: The more platforms the service checks for breaches to your personal information, the better.
• Credit monitoring: We ranked services that monitor your credit reports higher than those they don't. The best plans offer triple-bureau monitoring.
• Family plans: If you can enroll your family members, that's an added plus.
• Mobile app: The ability to access services from a smartphone was crucial.

Keep in mind that identity theft protection services can only alert you of breaches to your personal information, not prevent any fraud.