In this article, we’ll cover what critical features you should look for in an employee identity protection benefit. We’ll also go over some advanced features that you should consider if you want to offer your employees enhanced protection.
Employee benefits have a range of positive impacts—from attracting and retaining talent to supporting healthier, happier lives and helping employees plan for their futures. Above all, employee benefits make life better. In today’s environment, with the rising tide of scams, identity theft, and fraud, identity protection has become an essential part of that equation. But with so many options on the market, what should you be looking for in an identity protection solution?
Core features that set your employees up for success
When you’re considering an identity protection benefit, there are several foundational features and tools that should be included in the most basic plan to provide employees with effective coverage.
Identity and credit monitoring
Identity and credit monitoring are a cornerstone of identity protection, providing proactive alerts that employees need to protect their finances and stop fraud before more damage is done. This includes key features such as:
Financial monitoring: When a high-risk or unusual transaction takes place, employees receive an alert that encourages them to review the transaction and verify it or immediately report it to their financial institution.
Dark web monitoring: This feature automatically scans the dark web for compromised credentials such as usernames and passwords, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and more—and once those credentials are discovered, sends alerts to employees encouraging them to change their credentials or keep a close eye on certain accounts.
Social media monitoring: By monitoring your social media accounts for unusual activity, this feature helps alert employees to account takeovers and prevent cybercriminals from using their social media accounts to cause reputational damage or launch phishing attacks.
Credit monitoring: Receive alerts about credit changes such as new credit accounts or loans from credit bureaus.
Credit score tracking: This feature helps employees keep track of your credit score by sending them alerts when their credit score changes, giving them the power to better understand their credit score and immediately recognize fraudulent activity on their credit report.
Auto-on monitoring: With auto-on monitoring, employees receive several critical alerts without the need to log in and activate features, such as changes to personal information on an existing account, if a new account holder has been added to an existing account, if a new account was opened with the user’s personally identifiable information (PII), and more.
Family protection
When an employee’s family is protected, it can reduce the emotional and mental strain an employee experiences when a family member becomes the victim of identity theft and therefore reduce the distractions that might impact their work.
Inclusive household coverage: This kind of coverage protects everyone that lives with an employee, including in-laws, cousins, or other close family that may not be covered under traditional family plans.
Credit check for children: With the ability to check your child’s credit, you can detect and stop child identity theft before more damage occurs.
Senior family coverage: By extending an employee’s identity protection to their parents and grandparents and providing them with support resources designed for senior family members, you can help protect the most vulnerable employees of their family.
Restoration and support
Identity restoration and support is the meat and potatoes of any identity protection solution. While monitoring features that help protect employees’ identities and finances are very important, identity restoration actually stops further damage, such as financial losses and impacts on credit, from occurring.
U.S.-based 24/7 customer care: With US-based expert customer care teams standing by 24/7 to help customers avoid identify fraud and answer their questions, you can stop fraud before further damage is done and enjoy faster response times from expert who are more familiar with local institutions and fraud trends.
Full-service restoration support: By having certified identity fraud experts handle a member’s case from start to finish and full visibility into the progress of the case, employees don’t have to deal with complexities of identity restoration and can focus on their day-to-day responsibilities.
Pre-existing condition restoration: This critical feature enables employees to receive vital identity restoration support for identity theft that occurred before they signed up for coverage, helping repair longstanding damage.
Educational resources: With a comprehensive collection of articles and guides that are readily accessible to employees, they can get the guidance and information they need to stay safe from fraud.
Financial protection
No one wants to become the victim of identity theft, but when identity theft happens, it’s critical that employees have comprehensive coverage that will help them recover and protect their finances. With 30 percent of general consumers reporting to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) reported that they were unable to pay their bills and 32 percent of ITRC victims reporting that they went into debt as a result of an identity theft incident, the financial consequences of identity theft can be devastating.
Comprehensive identity theft coverage for individuals and families: Having strong financial protection, ideally with multi-million-dollar coverage, ensures that employees will receive comprehensive coverage that can cover both the many forms of identity theft and the expenses they incur as a result. At the minimum, your provider’s identity theft reimbursement should cover the following:
Identity theft expense reimbursement
Stolen fund reimbursement
401(k)/Health Savings Account fraud reimbursement
Advanced features for enhanced protection
While the features above are the core features employees need in an identity protection benefit to enjoy the minimum level of protection, an identity protection benefit can offer even more features for comprehensive coverage that goes beyond the basics.
Enhanced monitoring
If your organization offers a 401K plan or an HSA account, you might want a benefit that includes 401K and HSA account monitoring. This monitors your employees’ investment and health savings accounts for unusual activity and alerts them, helping them to immediately recognize and report fraud before further damage is caused.
Family protection that extends to the digital world
With children using so many devices, websites, apps, and tools, protecting them while they explore the digital realm is more important than ever. Choosing a benefit with family digital safety tools can make this process much easier and alert parents to potentially dangerous activity and situations. These tools include:
Web filtering: Prevent children from visiting adult sites or viewing inappropriate material
Screen time management: Simplify the process of setting screen time limits
Parental monitoring: Monitor your child’s photos, videos, email, and other media to ensure they’re using their devices safely
Location tracking: Use location tracking to keep track of your children and easily find lost devices
And finally, you should consider a benefit that also provides cyberbullying coverage to help support you and your family when you need it most. This includes reimbursement for costs associated with psychological counseling, investigating the incident, and more.
Scam protection
Protection from identity theft is critical if you want to secure your employees’ identities and finances. However, if your organization is looking for more comprehensive coverage, then you should consider a solution that also includes protection from scams. After all, scammers stole over $47 billion in 2024.
Scam alerts and education: Having a benefit that provides employees with education about how to recognize and avoid scams and alerts about the latest scams can help them avoid becoming a victim.
Scam blocking: With the ability to proactively block scam calls, texts, and emails, you can stop a scam before it even begins.
Scam takedown: Empowering employees to report and request the takedown of scam sites helps keep everyone safe.
Financial protection from scams: By implementing a benefit that offers coverage for scams and other digital crimes, you can help protect your employees’ finances and provide critical support when they need it most.
Improved control over data
A proven identity protection solution doesn’t just secure identities and finances—it also helps employees manage their data and who has access to it.
As digital devices play a bigger and bigger role in our daily lives, the more time we’re spending online—and with more time spent online, more of our data is available to companies and data brokers. With more control over their data, employees can better protect themselves from data breaches and decide whether or not a company has access to their data.
Digital footprint tracker: With a feature that shows employees which companies have access to their data, they can better manage their online data and have it removed more easily.
Data removal: This feature automatically monitors data broker sites for an employee’s information and requests the removal of it, helping to protect their data and reduce the likelihood that their data is exposed in a data breach or sold to other organizations.
Automatic data removal: By automating the process of searching for an employee’s data and having it removed, you can better protect employees from having their data sold by data brokers and exposed in data breaches.
More financial protection
If you’re committed to providing your employees with top-of-the-line identity protection, you should consider implementing a benefit that provides higher financial protections.
Different identity theft reimbursement limits: With so many different types of identity theft, providing a plan that offers different reimbursement limits can ensure your employees can choose a coverage configuration that best fits their needs.
Cryptocurrency crime coverage: Cryptocurrency is growing in popularity and usage, and having coverage that reimburses employees for cryptocurrency lost in a hacking attack can protect them from significant financial losses.
System restoration reimbursement: A malware or other hacking attack can make it extremely costly to recover lost data— reimbursement to cover the expenses related to data recovery can help soften the blow substantially.
Personal ransomware expense reimbursement: Ransomware is a growing threat, and by offering a plan that provides reimbursement for ransomware, you can protect your employees from the financial fallout of a ransomware event.
Additional fraud reimbursement: Expanded fraud reimbursement can protect your employees and their families from a greater range of fraud incidents, including deceased family member fraud, home title fraud, and professional credential fraud.
Ultimately, the right identity protection solution does more than monitor—it empowers employees to take control of their personal information, recover from incidents, and safeguard their financial future. And the right identity protection solution isn’t just a set of features. It’s backed by a benefits-focused provider and a customer care team that has years of experience working with organizations to equip them with a comprehensive identity protection benefit that fits their needs—and their budget.
To learn more about how an identity protection benefit can help protect your employees and your organization’s bottom line, visit our Business Hub.
