When employees have their identities stolen, they aren’t the only ones who suffer. Employee identity theft can have an impact on their employer too. Comprehensive identity protection gives employees proactive monitoring and features designed to help them protect themselves from ever-evolving risks. Providing identity protection as a benefit can help you ensure your employees stay engaged, while also looking out for your bottom line.
The annual deluge of new and trendy benefits, the challenges of working within an often-tight budget, the difficulty in finding a benefit that appeals to a workforce of unique individuals. Choosing benefits that provide your employees—and your company—with the most value can be overwhelming.
At the same time, identity theft, scams, and fraud are on the rise. And when an employee’s personal information is compromised, the impact can ripple far beyond the individual, affecting productivity, engagement, and even your organization’s security.
That’s why identity theft protection is quickly becoming a must-have employee benefit. The right solution can help safeguard your team’s financial well-being, protect your company’s reputation, and give you a competitive edge when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent.
The state of identity theft
Despite a tremendous boom in awareness, the use of more advanced technology, and a renewed emphasis in cybersecurity, identity theft continues to rise at an unprecedented pace. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) logged more than 1.1 million identity theft reports in 2024 and total identity fraud losses reached $27.2 billion.
Data breaches, one of the main causes of identity theft, are only becoming more common, too. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center's 2024 Annual Data Breach Report, the number of data compromises reached over 3000 in 2024, the second-highest level recorded.
The results couldn’t be clearer: identity theft is growing at a record pace. As new technology, applications, and devices make their way into the hands of consumers, scammers are coming up with new and complex schemes every day. Even the most vigilant can fall victim to identity theft, especially when it comes to factors that are outside of their control. While scammers’ methods are evolving every day, some of their common tactics include:
Phishing: By tricking people into revealing sensitive information like login credentials, Social Security numbers, and more via text message, email, or phone calls, scammers can use that information to steal identities.
Malware: Malware downloaded onto a device through attachments, websites, software, or other means, collects sensitive information such as passwords, login credentials, or other personally identifiable information.
Data breaches: Scammers compromise a business or organization’s system and extract the private data they have on file, which often includes Personally Identifiable Information (PII). They can also purchase this information from hackers who have compromised those systems.
Social media: Scammers can initiate an account takeover, which involves gaining access to your social media account, and using that account to steal PII. They can also use your social media posts to get more information about you and use that information to execute more convincing and effective phishing schemes.
How identity protection can benefit employees
The right identity protection solution does more than just guard against identity theft. It should offer a holistic approach with powerful features that help employees protect their finances, families, and devices, spot and avoid scams, and fully recover if their identity is compromised.
Protection for non-credit-based accounts
Our identities are composed of much more than our credit scores and accounts, and identity thieves can cause a great deal of havoc without ever touching our credit-based accounts. A best-in-class identity protection solution will monitor these accounts and alert members to suspicious activity immediately, limiting the amount of damage an identity thief can do. This includes critical alerts regarding:
New applications for credit cards, wireless carriers, and utilities
Fund transfers, high-risk banking activities, and public record alerts
Address changes
Protects an employee’s finances, families, and devices
In addition to protecting an employee’s credit and social media reputation, a quality identity protection benefit will also protect their finances. This will require a multi-pronged approach, and protection will vary from provider to provider.
However, there are two core elements that should be present: identity theft expense reimbursement and scam reimbursement.
Make sure the provider offers a substantive identity theft expense reimbursement. A plan should come with at least $1 million in coverage to ensure your provider offer a range of coverage, including stolen funds, 401K or HSA theft, home title theft, and other situations that aren’t often covered by typical identity theft plans. You’ll need to verify that the identity protection company is working with a quality insurance provider, like AIG, and that the funds can be used to cover an employee’s lost wages, legal fees, medical records request fees, CPA fees, childcare fees, and more.
Identity theft reimbursement is an essential feature, as the costs associated with identity theft can be substantial. By providing reimbursement to cover the costs of identity theft, you can be sure that your employees can afford essential items like groceries, electrical bills, and more.
Scam reimbursement is also a critical feature. With the complexity of modern scams and new scams appearing every day, having the protection of scam reimbursement helps to protect an employee’s finances, their peace of mind, and their mental health. Scams can take anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars from a victim, so having at least $50,000 in coverage is important. This amount of coverage can help ensure that your employees can recover from falling victim to a scam and protect vitally important aspects of their finances, such as their savings.
Protecting an employee’s family is also a critical aspect of an identity protection solution. By including protection for the employee’s family, including their children, other family members that live with them, and senior family members, you can not only protect financial accounts that those family members may have access to, but also protect an employee’s peace of mind and wellbeing.
A key part of protecting an employee’s finances is protecting their devices as well. With features like phishing and malware protection and scam detection on their devices, employees can receive the proactive protection they need to avoid becoming the victim of a scam, identity theft, or data breach.
Protects an employee’s social media account and personal information
Account takeover has skyrocketed in recent years, and this often begins via social media. When a cybercriminal gains access to an employee’s account, they can destroy the victim’s personal and professional life.
Account takeovers are also one of the most common ways of obtaining sensitive information like passwords, addresses, and other details about the account holder. With these personal details, the crook can open new accounts in the victim’s name as well as exploit existing accounts.
With social media monitoring, an identity theft protection solution will alert members that their accounts have been compromised, allowing them to change their password or shut down the account before further damage is done.
To truly protect an employee’s personal information, an identity protection plan should offer dark web monitoring. Your employees should be able to register important documents like driver’s licenses and credit cards with your provider. If these items are later discovered on the dark web, your employee should be notified immediately, and your provider should work hand-in-hand with your employee to resolve the matter.
Dark web monitoring will also monitor the dark web for sensitive credentials like email addresses, account passwords, and more. Once this critical information is detected, the identity protection solution will alert the employee, allowing them to change their password or account information and prevent their accounts from being compromised. This feature is critical in preventing identity theft as cybercriminals often get the information they need to steal an employee’s identity from secure accounts.
Assists with identity restoration
The most important feature of any identity protection plan lies in the assistance your provider offers to employees who become victims of identity theft. This is often a timely, costly, and incredibly stressful time for them.
A proven identity protection solution can not only quickly resolve identity theft incidents and restore an employee’s identity, but it can also significantly reduce the emotional and mental turmoil they experience. The quick resolution of an identity theft incident and the resulting peace of mind can have far-reaching benefits for employees during an incredibly difficult time for them.
You’ll also want to work with a provider that has a high customer satisfaction score as that reflects their ability to effectively serve your employees. And with 24/7 support from expert restoration specialists, employees can rest easy knowing that a helping hand is always available to handle the most challenging and tedious aspects of their restoration journey.
The toll of identity theft
53 percent of consumers worry about their digital identity, according to a recent Bitdefender survey
48 percent of identity theft victims said that issues related to identity theft were not resolved as many as 12 months after discovery, reports the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC)
82 percent of identity theft victims reporting to the ITRC reported feeling worried or anxious, 38 percent reported panic attacks, and 59 percent reported sleep disturbances, according to the ITRC
How an identity protection benefit can protect companies
We can all agree that when an employee has their identity stolen, it can turn their life upside down. However, they aren’t the only ones who suffer. The fallout from an identity theft incident can also have significant repercussions for their employer as well.
But there’s good news: an identity theft solution can help reduce or even completely prevent the impact of an employee’s identity theft on an employer.
Helps combat the cost of employee disengagement
Employee disengagement is one of the most significant threats any business could face. Each year, disengaged employees cost companies a fortune. The global leader in engagement research, Gallup, suggests that disengagement costs the global economy over $8.8 trillion each year.
When you consider the accompanying fear, uncertainty, and frustration an employee may feel because of identity theft, you have the perfect recipe for disengagement. In fact, 31 percent of general consumers reported that identity theft resulted in lost time at work.
The emotional toll of identity theft can also impact an employee’s relationship with their coworkers. 31 percent of general consumers reported that they experienced a strained relationship with their boss. This can cause additional friction in the workplace, further reducing a team’s effectiveness and productivity.
By getting employee’s finances back on track more quickly, streamlining identity restoration, and reducing emotional and mental turmoil, an identity theft solution can significantly reduce the disruption of productivity that an employee might experience as a result of identity theft.
Protecting your business beyond corporate security
An identity protection benefit can also help bolster your corporate security.
Social media protection: Cybercriminals can use an employee’s hijacked social media account to defame your business, phish the victim’s coworkers, and defraud customers, clients, and partners. An identity protection solution can prevent cybercriminals from damaging your company’s reputation, launching devastating phishing attacks, and potentially compromising your systems.
Provides ongoing and thorough education: A quality identity protection benefit will provide ongoing education, including best practices for safeguarding accounts and creating more secure passwords, reviewing new tactics hackers are using, and other pertinent information as quickly as possible.
Protects corporate credit cards, usernames, and passwords: An identity protection benefit can protect the contents of your employee’s wallet, including company credit cards. However, a quality identity protection solution will also monitor the dark web for an employee’s login credentials for both their workplace and their personal accounts.
Helps companies attract and retain top talent
By offering identity protection as an employee benefit, your business can modernize your benefits offering and be able to better attract and retain top talent.
In today’s job market, the importance of workplace benefits can’t be understated. In fact, according to PeopleKeep’s 2024 Employee Benefit Survey, 81 percent of employees said an employer’s benefit package is an important factor in whether or not they accept a job.
Considering that 53 percent of consumers worry about their digital identity, prospective employees are likely to see an identity protection solution as an important benefit. An identity protection benefit also has the appeal of being much more affordable than purchasing a plan individually, providing employees with the opportunity to get premium services at a significant discount.
And a great benefits package is just as important for retaining talent. According to the 2025 Global State of Benefits report, 75 percent of employees are more likely to stay with their employer due to their benefits program. 
By securing your employees’ finances and peace of mind, you’re not only setting your teams up for success, but your organization as well. To learn more about identity protection and what to expect in a best-in-class identity protection solution, get in touch with us today.
