Every day, your employees give their all for your business. But when they’re worried about their privacy, identity, or finances being compromised, the quality of their work can significantly diminish.
In today’s new reality, can you blame them for being concerned?
During the summer of 2017, nearly 80 percent of working adults had their personal data stolen in just one data breach. Now, more than 143 million Americans have to come to grips with the fact they may become a victim of identity theft at any moment. Although Equifax initially offered those affected limited credit monitoring, that service expired on January 31, 2019 — leaving millions of victims unprotected.
Is it any wonder Americans recently ranked criminal hacking as the number one threat to their health, safety, and prosperity?
Employees aren’t the only ones who should be concerned, as identity theft can pose significant problems for employers as well. When an employee has their identity stolen, it can take between 100 to 200 hours and six months to fix. If the theft isn’t caught in time, it can wind up taking much longer — thousands of hours and years to fully resolve. That’s a lot of missed work hours, reduced productivity, and increased disengagement.
Luckily, your company can take steps to reduce the risks associated with identity theft, and it all begins by offering your employees a comprehensive identity protection service. Just be certain to do your homework, as quality varies greatly by provider.
Let’s take a look at some core functionality you should expect, all of which comes standard with PrivacyArmor® — InfoArmor’s award-winning employee identity protection benefit.
Feature: Traditional credit monitoring
An identity protection benefit should carefully monitor an employee’s credit profile. This should include any mortgages, car payments, credit card debt, and all other accounts that would appear on an employee’s credit reports. While this is an essential feature all plans must include, it’s important to remember that traditional credit monitoring alone isn’t enough to protect your employees.
How PrivacyArmor helps
With PrivacyArmor, your employees can rest assured that their credit and financial reports are being closely monitored. If there’s a change to an employee’s credit report, we send him or her a notification instantly.
Feature: Monitors more than credit accounts
In today’s high-tech world, traditional credit monitoring services offer very little protection for employees. Perhaps the biggest issue is that these services simply “monitor” your employees’ credit and occasionally alert them to changes. What they don’t do, however, is take action and help employees combat any detected risks.
How PrivacyArmor helps
PrivacyArmor alerts your employees to a wide array of updates that go beyond traditional credit-based accounts. These include new addresses, payday loans, and other important changes that may not appear on a credit report. We also alert employees about any high-risk transactions we detect, such as e-signatures, online money transfers, or transactions that required online authentication.
We further help your employees achieve financial wellness by monitoring their credit, debit, and checking accounts, and notifying them of suspicious activities as they occur.
Feature: Sends alert notifications in near-real time
When it comes to detecting and combating identity theft, seconds matter! If identity theft isn’t detected quickly, it can take hundreds of hours and, in some cases, years to fully restore a victim’s identity.
That’s why a quality identity protection benefit will alert users about potential risks in near-real time. If you’re unsure about a provider’s response time, ask them! If it takes them weeks, days, or even hours to respond, look elsewhere.
How PrivacyArmor helps
PrivacyArmor alerts you to important notifications in seconds, not hours. Additionally, we’re selective with the notifications your employees will receive. This selectivity helps us reduce employee frustration and distraction while ensuring they are alerted to all truly important matters.
Feature: Protects employee privacy
In addition to protecting your employee’s identity, an identity protection benefit should also protect their privacy. While some traditional credit monitoring platforms exploit your employee’s personal data by sending them credit card and mortgage offers — or worse, actually resell employee data — a quality identity protection will safeguard their privacy from potential lenders.
How PrivacyArmor helps
The PrivacyArmor solicitation opt-out tool allows your employees to reduce and eliminate email and direct marketing campaigns for pre-approved credit offers, as well as providing a single portal for managing the Do Not Call Registry, coupon opt-out, mail filtering, and more.
Feature: Resolves pre-existing conditions
If an identity protection provider excludes or charges additional premiums to cover employees who have pre-existing conditions, this is a clear sign you shouldn’t work with the provider. Only do business with companies that are committed to protecting everyone equally.
How PrivacyArmor helps
Unlike the competition, PrivacyArmor does not discriminate against employees who have been victims of identity theft in the past. Additionally, we don’t charge them one cent more than we do employees without pre-existing conditions. It’s simply the right thing to do.
Feature: Offers a broad definition of family
It’s 2019, so why do so many identity protection providers’ definitions of “family” look like something out of the 1950s?
When selecting an identity protection benefit for your employees, look for a provider that uses a very broad definition of “family.” A provider shouldn’t drop your employee’s children because they turn 18 or head to college. And they shouldn’t refuse to cover a legal dependent for any reason, especially age.
How PrivacyArmor helps
PrivacyArmor offers the most generous family coverage in the industry. Our policies cover all kids, parents, in-laws, and other dependents living at home. Additionally, there is no age cap on minors or “aging out” of coverage.
Feature: Utilizes auto-on monitoring
One of the most essential features your identity protection service should include is perhaps one of the least known — auto-on monitoring. Many identity protection services require employees to go through a lengthy and often complicated sign-up process to be fully enrolled. If an employee overlooks one step, they are left completely unprotected. Work with an identity protection provider that begins protecting your employees as soon as the provider receives your employee’s SSN.
How PrivacyArmor helps
There are no hidden loopholes with PrivacyArmor. If an employee signs up for our policy, they’re covered from day one! As soon as we receive an employee’s Social Security number, we go to work safeguarding them from identity thieves.
Feature: Provides substantial identity theft insurance
In addition to protecting your employee’s privacy and identity, a quality identity protection benefit should also safeguard your employee’s finances. One of the most important ways they can do this is by providing your employees with a significant identity theft insurance policy.
Make sure the provider offers as much as $1 million dollars and that this amount can cover stolen funds, as well as other costs associated with identity theft.
How PrivacyArmor helps
If an employee falls victim to identity theft, our $1 million identity theft insurance policy benefit reimburses many of their out-of-pocket costs, like lost wages, legal fees, medical records request fees, CPA fees, child care fees, and more. You can rest assure that funds will be available should your employees need them, as every policy is backed by American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida.
Feature: Offers comprehensive dark web monitoring
An identity protection benefit should also safeguard the contents of your employee’s wallet by scouring the dark web for the appearance of their credit cards, debit cards, or even their licenses.
Notice we didn’t say “scan” the dark web. If a benefit provider uses that phrase, it’s probably a good idea to look elsewhere. There is no scanning of the dark web; that’s not how it works. To survey threats on the dark web, a provider will need to employ a combination of sophisticated technology alongside deeply embedded operatives.
How PrivacyArmor helps
With PrivacyArmor, credit card numbers, driver’s licenses, email and login credentials, IP addresses, and other important documents are stored in a secure online vault, making it easy for your employees to replace the contents of their lost or stolen wallet quickly.
We understand that artificial intelligence alone isn’t enough to combat the many risks of identity theft. That’s why PrivacyArmor leverages deeply embedded human operatives who have years of experience infiltrating criminal organizations on the dark web. If we find that your employees’ information has been exposed as the result of a data breach, we’ll inform them immediately and tell you how to take action.
Feature: Provides superior identity restoration services
If you truly want to provide peace of mind to your employees, the most important feature your identity protection benefit should include is superior identity restoration services. If an employee does become a victim of identity theft, their benefit should include certified Privacy Advocates who are available 24/7.
In addition to answering any questions your employee might have, an identity protection provider should also handle the most tedious and time-consuming elements of the restoration process. Leaving your employee to focus on what really matters — their job.
How PrivacyArmor helps
If your employee does have their identity stolen, a dedicated Privacy Advocate® will guide and manage your employee’s full recovery process — restoring credit, identity, accounts, finances, and their sense of security. Identity thieves work around the clock and so do our certified Privacy Advocates, who are available 24/7/365.
Feature: Empowers participants to manage emerging threats
It’s not enough for an identity protection benefit to alert your employees to existing threats. A provider should also empower your employees to manage emerging threats as they occur.
How PrivacyArmor helps
PrivacyArmor provides access to tips, tools, and resources that empower your employees to manage their online identity and actively prevent fraud. They can take prevention a step further by pulling reports on medical, financial, and credit information to determine if it’s fallen into the wrong hands.
Feature: Works within your budget
A quality identity protection benefit should meet the needs of both small businesses and enterprise accounts by offering a variety of payment options and plans for your employees.
How PrivacyArmor helps
PrivacyArmor meets your corporate budgeting needs by providing ready-to-use benefits and multiple options for payment. You can choose from company-paid, employee-paid, or a hybrid model.
Feature: Excellent support
What good is an employee identity protection benefit if it offers inferior customer support? A quality identity protection benefit will offer quality customer support from a team of certified professionals.
How PrivacyArmor helps
InfoArmor has a call center right here in the U.S., and it’s staffed with seasoned and certified professionals who are experts in the field of identity protection.
Feature: Dedicated account manager
Is there anything more frustrating than dealing with someone new each time you call a company? Your provider should provide a dedicated account manager who becomes familiar with the needs of your company and employees.
How PrivacyArmor helps
No more switching back and forth between representatives — your company receives a dedicated account manager to answer any questions you may have.
Feature: Easy onboarding
Some benefit providers disappear shortly after they sell you on a product or push you off to an overworked implementation team. This simply isn’t acceptable.
How PrivacyArmor helps
At InfoArmor, onboarding is a breeze. Each employer is assigned an implementation specialist to assist you each step of the way. And we don’t disappear after your employees are enrolled.
Feature: Deceased family member remediation
Dealing with the tragedy of the death of a loved one is painful enough without also having to worry about the lasting consequences of their information falling into the hands of an identity thief. A quality identity protection plan will help your employee restore the identity of a loved one no matter when it was compromised.
How PrivacyArmor helps
If someone uses the identity of a deceased family member who was enrolled in a PrivacyArmor family plan, we will help fully resolve it.
Premium features included with PrivacyArmor Plus
In addition to the above features, which must come standard with any plan you select, there are other premium features that warrant consideration. Here are a few of the most important premium features we include with PrivacyArmor Plus.
Premium feature: IP address monitoring
If an employee registers their IP addresses, we can detect and inform them if it’s been compromised. This is a powerful tool for their privacy, as anything that connects to the internet has an IP address.
An IP address is a unique string of numbers and periods that identifies computers using the internet. IP addresses are considered personally identifiable information because they can be used in conjunction with other data to build a profile about an individual. This profile can include actions such as browsing habits, sites visited, ads clicked — any kind of online activity.
Premium feature: Safeguards employee social media accounts
One of the ways our identity protection benefit helps protect employee privacy is by actively monitoring social media accounts. A compromised social media account can lead to major problems for your employees and potentially even bigger ones for your company.
That’s why we immediately alert employees if we detect signs of potential account takeover. Additionally, PrivacyArmor monitors some of the most common social accounts for everyone in the family. It provides alerts on vulgarity, explicit content, violence, threats, cyberbullying, and other potentially damaging content so your employees can proactively manage their online reputations, as well as those of their family members.
Premium feature: Annual tri-bureau credit report and scores + unlimited Transunion reports and scores
Your employees can check their credit score and obtain credit reports from all three bureaus every year. This allows them to compare their credit reports across all three bureaus and get insight into their personal information, accounts reported to each bureau, their overall credit usage and debt summary, existing hard inquiries, and reported collections or public records.
Additionally, covered employees can now obtain a TransUnion report or score from their PrivayArmor portal at any time.
Premium feature: Credit freeze assistance
Our customer care team will help your employees freeze their credit at all three bureaus.
A credit freeze lets you restrict access to your credit report, which makes it more difficult for identity thieves to open new accounts in your name. Our team of Privacy Advocates are available 24/7 and are trained to walk your employees through the credit freeze process with all three credit bureaus. Their intimate knowledge of how the credit bureau system works means we can help your employees complete freezes quickly and avoid confusion and sales pitches during the process.
Premium feature: Credit lock
Easily lock an adult TransUnion credit report right from the PrivacyArmor portal. If your employees would like to lock their child’s TransUnion credit file to prevent unauthorized access, our Privacy Advocates will assist them through that process as well.
Having the ability to lock their credit report and those of their children is an important tool for safeguarding your employees and their families, as it stops creditors from authorizing potentially fraudulent lending transactions.
Premium feature: In-app credit report disputes
Employees can sign into the PrivacyArmor portal to let us know that a transaction wasn’t them, or if there is incorrect data, to directly dispute an item on their TransUnion credit report. Keeping our members’ credit report as accurate as possible has always been a priority for us, and now we’re making it even easier.
By automating more of the process, we enable our members to independently work through disputes online themselves if they choose. Of course, if they’d prefer to do this with a Privacy Advocate, the team is at the ready to assist your employees.
Premium Feature: Fraud reimbursement and advances
If fraud or identity theft hits your employees’ 401(k) investment or health savings accounts (HSA), InfoArmor will reimburse the stolen funds. Just make sure that when employees enroll, they add any accounts they’d like eligible for reimbursement for to Financial Transaction Monitoring in their PrivacyArmor portal.
If identity thieves steal money from their bank accounts, we’ll also reimburse your employees for the stolen funds so they never have to cover a loss. Again, they’ll just need to add any accounts they’d like covered to Financial Transaction Monitoring in your PrivacyArmor portal.
Finally, we’ll advance their tax refund as well, in the event that someone fraudulently files and receives a return on their behalf.
Next Steps
At InfoArmor, we don’t believe in taking shortcuts.
For more than a decade, we have dedicated our lives to a singular mission — providing peace of mind in an insecure world. With the help of an amazing team, we’ve been able to accomplish a lot over that time.
We’ve created PrivacyArmor and PrivacyArmor Plus, industry leading identity protection services; PrivacyArmor Secure, which comes standard with security training for your employees and advanced threat intelligence; and VigilanteATI™, our award-winning Advanced Threat Intelligence platform and investigative services.
By working with international undercover operatives, we have discovered threats that other solutions on the market failed to notice, and together, we’ve been able to help make the world a safer, more private place for our clients.
We hope you’ll consider joining us on our mission to protect the privacy, security, and finances, of every man, woman, and child. For more information on how we can help provide peace of mind to your employees, click here. Looking to take action now or have a question you think we can answer? Contact us; we’re here to help.
