Why should my company offer identity theft protection as an employee benefit?

Introduction: Choosing the right benefit for your employees 

Chapter 1: The state of identity theft

Chapter 2: How does an identity protection benefit protect your employees?

Chapter 3: How can an employee identity protection benefit protect your company?

Closing: What are the next steps your company can take to protect your employees

Introduction: Choosing the right benefit for your employees

The annual deluge of new and trendy benefits. The challenges of working within an often-tight budget. The difficulty in finding a benefit that’s attractive to a generationally-diverse workforce. 

We get it — selecting the right employee benefit can feel overwhelming. The good news is, we’re here to help. The following guide is designed to help you determine if an identity protection benefit is right for your employees. 

We’ll begin by looking at the current state of identity theft, including analyzing the impact employee identity theft has on their employer. Next, we’ll take a closer look at how identity theft protection helps safeguard not only employees but also their employer. Finally, we’ll review some resources you might find helpful! 

Let’s get started. 

Chapter 1: The state of identity theft

Despite a tremendous boom in awareness, the utilization of more advanced technology, and a renewed emphasis in cybersecurity, identity theft continues to rise at an unprecedented pace. 1 in 4 Americans were impacted by identity theft in 2020 and total identity fraud losses reached $56 billion.

And in the last year, the total number of data breaches and records exposed has skyrocketed. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center's 2021 Annual Data Breach Report, the number of data compromises is up more than 68 percent compared to 2020. The new record number of data compromises is 23 percent above the previous all-time high set in 2017. 

The results couldn’t be clearer: identity theft is growing at a record pace.

How identity theft occurs

Pinpointing how identity theft occurs is equally disturbing. 

Cybercriminals accomplish this through a variety of strategies, and phishing tends to top the charts in terms of success.

But phishing isn’t the only reason why identity theft so often begins at the office. Much of the problem stems from the types of data businesses are required to store on their employees, as well as the sheer volume of records they’re responsible for housing. When you combine these factors, there’s no wonder cybercriminals devote so much time and energy to targeting businesses. 

Many times businesses make it easy for hackers by not following best practices when it comes to cybersecurity protocol. A prime example is how many members of management — and even some non-managerial employees — have access to personnel records. This makes it much easier for cybercriminals to exploit a weak link. This problem is further exacerbated when companies store employee data in the cloud. Additionally, many employees do not follow proper security guidelines when accessing work files from unsecure networks. 

Of course, not every threat is an external one. Often, a victim is targeted by a peer. Disgruntled employees are capable of inflicting damage like never before, and a wave of new studies suggest they’re doing just that. Interestingly enough, money doesn’t appear to be a prime motivator. In fact, a study recently found that 27 percent of U.S. office workers at large companies would sell password data to outsiders, and many would do it for $100 or less. 

Chapter 2: How does identity protection protect your employees?

Before we examine the many ways identity protection helps protect an organization, let’s take a closer look at how identity protection helps safeguard your employees. Please note that not every identity protection solution works the same, so you’ll need to verify that the following features and benefits come standard with any plan you’re considering. If any of these components are missing, you should likely look elsewhere. An identity protection benefit only works when it protects an employee’s identity, privacy, and finances. 

Protects non-credit-based accounts

A quality identity protection benefit will monitor much more than credit. While monitoring and reporting credit changes is absolutely critical to identity protection, it’s only part of the solution. 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. 

So in addition to traditional credit monitoring, an identity protection benefit should also alert participants in near-real time about:

• New applications for credit cards, wireless carriers, and utilities

• Unauthorized account access, compromised passwords or login credentials, and password resets

• Fund transfers, high-risk banking activities, and public record alerts

• Address changes

Protects an employee’s social media account

An identity protection benefit should also monitor an employee’s social media accounts. This is an incredibly important feature, as it helps safeguard both your employees and your company’s bottom line. We’ll get into the latter part in the next chapter, but for now, let’s just focus on how it helps employees. 

 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. One of the most common means of accomplishing this is by collecting the physical addresses, passwords, and other sensitive data associated with the account. With these personal details, the crook can open new accounts in the victim’s name as well as exploit existing accounts.

Keep in mind, employees aren’t just concerned with protecting their social identities; they also want to protect those of their family members, especially their children. So be certain the plan you’re evaluating is designed to protect the whole family.  

Protects an employee’s finances 

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 must be present: identity theft expense reimbursement and dark web surveillance. 

Identity theft expense reimbursement

Make sure the provider offers a substantive identity theft expense reimbursement. The costs associated with fraud can stack up quickly, so a plan should come standard with $1 million in coverage. 

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.

Dark web monitoring 

To truly protect an employee’s finances, an identity protection plan should offer complimentary 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. 

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.

Here are just a few statistics that touch on the negative impact identity theft can have on an employee:

• A recent Gallup survey found that 74 percent of Americans worry about having their personal, credit card or financial information stolen by computer hackers and 72 percent worry about identity theft

• Without assistance, resolving fraud and identity theft can take up to 200 hours or more to remedy

• According to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s Aftermath Report, a survey of identity theft victims found that:

  • 86.7 percent reported feeling stressed

  • 36.7 percent reported panic attacks

  • 90 percent reported sleep disturbances 

Due to the emotionally-draining and prolonged nature of identity theft restoration, it’s imperative that your benefits provider does everything in their power to support your employee and restore your employee’s identity as quickly as possible. 

That’s why any serious identity protection will come standard with certified advocates — available 24/7 — to handle the most time-consuming and tedious portions of restoration.

Chapter 3: How can an identity protection benefit protect your company?

When an employee has their identity stolen, they aren’t the only ones who suffer. Their employer also takes a big hit. The good news is that a quality identity protection benefit can protect the victim’s employer as well. 

Here are a few examples of how. 

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. This isn’t hyperbole; the global leader in engagement research, Gallup, suggests that disengagement costs businesses more than $500 billion every year.

There’s no quicker way for an employee to become disengaged than when they’re contending with a threat like identity theft — which can take hundreds of hours and many months to resolve. When you combine the accompanying fear, uncertainty, and frustration, identity theft becomes the perfect breeding ground for disengagement. 

Their disengagement can quickly spread to other members of your team, which leads to a significant decline in many KPIs. Keeping employees engaged is key to business success. Gallup’s annual State of the American Workplace 2020 report found that companies with higher levels of engagement, when compared to companies with low levels of engagement, experience:

• 20 percent higher sales

• 17 percent higher productivity

• 21 percent higher profitability

• Between 24 and 59 percent lower turnover

• 70 percent fewer employee safety incidents

A quality identity protection benefit can help prevent your employees from becoming disengaged by helping them resolve any and all identity theft-related problems quickly and thoroughly. This lets employees focus on what really matters — their career. 

Helps protect your reputation 

In today’s hyper-connected world, few things are as important to the success of your business as its reputation. There have been hundreds of articles written on the topic, and the following are just a few highlights of their findings:

• People are more willing to share negative experiences, than positive experiences with a company

• Nearly 4 in 5 people say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations

• Companies with a bad reputation typically spend 10 percent or more per hire than companies with a good reputation. For companies with 10,000 employees, that equates to $7.6 million in additional wages

• A Harvard Business Review study found that nearly half of all job applicants would reject a job offer from a business with a bad reputation, regardless of how much money they were offered

The evidence is overwhelming: your company’s success is directly tied to its reputation. And your reputation is the first thing to take a hit after experiencing a data breach, security incident, or any other event that leads to employee or customer data loss.

You can proactively reduce the fallout by investing in employee identity protection. 

Bolster corporate security 

An identity protection benefit should also help bolster your corporate security. Here are a few examples of how this can occur:

Social media protection 

We discussed how social media protection benefits your employees in the previous chapter, but did you know it also protects your company? 

When a cybercriminal hijacks an employee’s account, they can use it to defame your business, phish the victim’s coworkers, and defraud customers, clients, and partners. That’s why it’s so imperative that an employee identity protection benefit monitors your employees’ social media for suspicious behavior and alerts them at the first sign of account takeover. 

By catching the problem quickly, you significantly reduce your organization’s risk and liability. 

Provides ongoing and thorough education

A quality identity protection benefit will also educate your employees about new and evolving identity theft risks, as well as the latest cybersecurity standards. This ongoing education should include, in part: 

• Best practices for safeguarding accounts and creating more secure passwords

• Reviewing new tactics hackers, cybercriminals, and identity thieves are using to attack employees and corporations

• Alerting participants to data breaches, security incidents, and other pertinent information as quickly as possible

Protects corporate credit cards, usernames, and passwords

As we mentioned in the previous chapter, an identity protection benefit should protect the contents of your employee’s wallet. This is especially important for employees who might have access to company credit cards.

Of course, this dark web monitoring shouldn’t be limited to financial documents. Your provider should also track and protect the usernames and passwords your employees provide. After all, many people will use the same password for all of their accounts, whether for personal or professional use.

As a result, cybercriminals can easily gain access to sensitive corporate data. That’s why your identity protection provider should alert an employee in near-real time and work with them to remedy the situation in the event that their — or their employer’s — data winds up somewhere it shouldn’t.

Helps companies attract and retain top talent

By offering identity protection as an employee benefit, your business could modernize your benefits offering and be able to better attract and retain top talent. This is especially true for millennials, who are a) far more likely to leave your organization than other generations and b) more likely to prefer additional benefits over salary increases.

By 2025, millennials are expected to make up around 75 percent of the workforce. That could spell big problems for businesses that miss the mark, as the following statistics illustrate:

• 60 percent of millennials are open to a new job

• 63 percent intend to leave their current employer within a year

• Three out of five millennials say they’ve switched jobs between one and four times within the past five years

Closing: What are the next steps your company can take to protect your employees?

Thanks for reading our guide! We hope it provided some clarity as to why your business should offer employees identity theft protection as a benefit. If you’d like to learn a little more about identity theft, identity protection as a benefit, or Allstate Identity Protection’s award-winning solution, the following resources might be of value.

• Discover how Allstate Identity Protection helps employees protect themselves, what sets us apart from the competition, and core features every identity protection benefit should include

• For more insights on how to help protect your employees and educate yourself about the risks of our digital age, you can check out our employer blog

• Would you like to see Allstate Identity Protection in action? That’s great! You can request a free demo here

Finally, if you’d like immediate assistance, or if you have a question you think we can help answer, please reach out. We’ve been in the employee identity protection industry for more than a decade, and we’d love to partner with you.