LifeLock by Norton Review: Best Identity Theft Monitoring Features

LifeLock by Norton is CNET’s choice for the identity theft protection service with the best monitoring features.

With LifeLock, you’ll get access to what we like to call the basics of identity theft protection -- dark web and Social Security number monitoring and identity theft insurance in the event your identity is stolen.

But depending on the subscription tier you choose, you’ll get access to an abundance of handy identity and credit monitoring features, such as bank account, social media, 401(k) investment and home title monitoring. Some of LifeLock’s features, including buy now pay later plan and utility alerts, aren’t yet offered by competitors we’ve reviewed. You’ll also find more hidden monitoring options after creating an account and peeking behind the curtain.

LifeLock

Best identity theft monitoring features

See at LifeLock

✔ Dark web monitoring
✔ Social Security number monitoring
✔ TransUnion credit lock available with Advantage and Ultimate Plus plans
✔ Starts at $1 million for legal costs and $25,000 for personal expense compensation and stolen funds reimbursement; up to $3 million combined with Ultimate Plus plan, per adult.

Who should use LifeLock? 

You might consider LifeLock if you’re looking for a wide variety of identity theft features in one plan. LifeLock by Norton probably offers the most features we’ve seen in a single identity theft protection service -- albeit at a steep price.

LifeLock also provides one of the better identity theft protection insurance packages in the industry, ranging from $1,050,000 to $3 million per adult and $1,050,000 per child added to a family plan. The industry standard for identity theft is $1 million per adult. 

LifeLock’s Standard plan, at $12 per month, will appeal most to individuals on a budget. With it, you get dark web monitoring, Social Security number monitoring and up to $1,050,000 in identity theft insurance payouts. United States Postal Service address change, stolen wallet protection and one credit bureau monitoring from Equifax are also included.

But, LifeLock may not be a good fit for you if you don’t find much value in the ancillary services the company provides. And you’ll pay extra for some features that competitors include in their base price. For example, you’ll pay more to bundle LifeLock’s services with Norton antivirus protection, but competitors like Aura include antivirus protection in all tiers.

Despite the impressive compilation of services LifeLock offers, it doesn’t offer everything. No identity theft protection service we’ve reviewed does. Zander Insurance, our choice for the best budget-friendly option, includes a password manager and a VPN in its Elite Plan -- two perks not currently offered by LifeLock. Aura, CNET’s pick for best identity theft protection, also includes three credit bureau monitoring with all plans as well as a digital vault to keep your most sensitive information safe. LifeLock doesn’t. 

What products does LifeLock offer?

LifeLock offers three tiers of coverage: Standard, Advantage and Ultimate Plus. There are three plans available for each, covering individuals, two adults and two adults with up to five children. With each tier, the potential payout in identity theft insurance for expenses, stolen funds and legal fees, per adult, increases. The list of credit and identity theft monitoring services available to you also grows.  

All LifeLock members get around-the-clock customer support, a US-based identity restoration specialist and credit monitoring for at least one of the three major credit bureaus. Dark web monitoring and Social Security Number monitoring are also included. But be aware that all pricing is for the first year only and will renew at a higher price, per the company’s website. 

Standard

LifeLock Standard comes with $1,050,000 in identity theft insurance if your identity is stolen, consisting of $1 million for lawyers and experts and $25,000 each for expenses and stolen funds reimbursement. Additional features include one bureau credit monitoring (Equifax), USPS address change alerts and data breach notifications. If you sign up for a family plan with children, you also get access to credit file detection for each child and guided child freeze. 

Under current promotional pricing, Standard annual plans work out to between $8 to $19 per month, depending on if you opt for an individual plan, family plan (two adults) or a family plan with up to five kids. If billed monthly, you’ll pay between $12 to 36.

LifeLock by Norton Standard plan pricing:

Advantage

LifeLock Advantage comes with everything in Standard, plus a boatload of additional features. Among them are TransUnion credit file lock, which keeps new credit accounts from being opened in your name. It also includes payday loan lock. This prevents identity thieves from taking out a payday loan -- a type of unsecured high-interest debt -- in your name. Additionally, you’ll receive alerts if a buy now, pay later plan is opened in your name, notifications for crimes in your name and checking, credit and savings account activity alerts. 

With the elevated tier, members also potentially get more identity theft insurance. Advantage offers up to $1.2 million in payouts per adult if your identity is stolen. Each child on a family plan is also covered up to $1,050.000. 

If billed monthly, an Advantage account costs between $23 to $58, depending on the number of adults and children on a plan. Annual plans billed in full at the start of the plan year are offered at a discounted price that average out to between $15 to $30 per month.  

LifeLock by Norton Advantage plan pricing:

Ultimate Plus

LifeLock Ultimate Plus gives you all the identity theft and credit monitoring features that the company has to offer, including up to $3 million in identity theft insurance per adult and $1,050.000 per child. 

In addition to all features included with Advantage and Standard, Ultimate Plus will monitor your home title and 401(k) investing account. It also offers phone and bank account takeover alerts. If your name appears on a sex offender registry, LifeLock will also inform you.

Ultimate Plus costs between $35 to $80 for monthly plans and works out to about $20 to $39 per month if billed in full at the beginning of the plan year. 

LifeLock by Norton Ultimate Plus plan pricing:

LifeLock products, compared

What’s it like to use LifeLock by Norton?

LifeLock by Norton offers a 30-day free trial. But you may encounter a small hiccup when you sign up to try out the service like I did. I was asked to pay at the checkout screen twice before a promo code finally populated the next day and allowed me to access LifeLock for free. This was probably a glitch, so keep trying until you get through if it also happens to you.

Upon signing up, I was asked to provide basic info, such as my name, Social Security number and credit card information. You may have some pause about sharing your Social Security number with LifeLock, but it’s required by any identity theft service to monitor the dark web for traces of your identity. 

I opted to try out LifeLock Ultimate Plus, the company’s most expensive plan, so that I could test every tool LifeLock has to offer. Full disclosure, it’s a lot. Some features aren’t even advertised on its website. But LifeLock does a great job of organizing these features by category, so you’re not bombarded by them on one page.

Once in my account, I was brought to my dashboard, which looked pretty empty apart from the services already underway (like dark web and SSN monitoring) thanks to the info I provided when I signed up. You’ll need to link every account you want LifeLock to monitor, from credit and bank accounts to any social media profiles you have. (LifeLock does not monitor your direct messages or chats on social media for suspicious activity.)

Lifelock partners with data aggregation company Yodlee to link financial accounts to your profile. Despite having to do so one at a time, I found the process to be very seamless. After you log in to your bank on a pop-up screen, simply choose the accounts you want to connect to your LifeLock account. Anyone who’s ever used a budgeting app will find this process familiar. I like that you can easily add more accounts later on, even on LifeLock’s mobile app, which is easy to navigate.

To best familiarize yourself with LifeLock and its abundance of features, I suggest you go down the options on the left-side navigation panel at your leisure. If you opt for Ultimate Plus, expect to spend a couple of hours doing this. But here’s a glimpse of what you can expect to find.

Under “Credit Services,” you can download your annual credit reports from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. You can also view open and closed credit accounts, your current credit card debt and a list of previous addresses.

Under “Lock & Freeze,” you can lock your TransUnion credit account and freeze your Experian and Equifax accounts. Both credit locks and credit freezes prevent you or anyone else from opening a new account in your name, while existing accounts remain unaffected. The difference is credit locks help you achieve this faster. Credit locks are typically offered by credit bureaus as part of a credit monitoring package or standalone subscription service, whereas credit freezes are free. But they both work the same way.

Payday loan account locks are also available on this screen. You can even enable bank account, employment data, and utility account freezes -- the latter through the National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange. 

Finally, you can add external financial accounts by clicking “Financial Monitoring” on the left-side navigation panel. Right below this option is “Monitored info” where you get a breakdown of every account you’ve connected to LifeLock so far. 

Other notable features

LifeLock by Norton’s mobile app works as you would expect. In some ways, it’s a more simplified version of the desktop interface. Here, you can also easily add external accounts, check your credit reports and view plan details. But most importantly, it gives you the most convenient method to access fraud and identity theft alerts. 

With LifeLock, you can also customize what purchases, transfers and withdrawals you’re alerted about, based on the dollar amount you choose for each.

With LifeLock Ultimate Plus, I had the option of setting up life, health, auto and home insurance monitoring. You can even have LifeLock monitor your driver’s license, mother’s maiden name and gamertag on the dark web. These options are also available to LifeLock Advantage and Standard members, according to the company.

Similar to Experian’s identity theft service, Lifelock also provides a privacy monitor, which searches people finder sites like Spokeo where your information is made public for potential bad actors to see. Then, it helps you request that the info be deleted. I used this feature and found bits of my personal information on over a dozen sites. But this didn’t surprise me since I’m a journalist.

Poking around in LifeLock’s settings I also found a few features that caught me by surprise -- in a good way. Both hint at how serious LifeLock takes protecting your personal information. 

You can delete all of your personal data from LifeLock if you decide the service isn’t right for you. You can do this by hovering over “My Account” on the upper right corner of the page while logged in and choosing “Privacy Options.” In this same setting, you can also request a report every 30 days on the data LifeLock collects on you as you use the service. 

How LifeLock’s identity restoration services work                                                                                                  

LifeLock breaks down the identity theft restoration process for members into a few steps.

• Open a restoration case: If you believe you’re a victim of identity theft, you have to contact LifeLock and wait up to 72 business hours to be connected with a restoration specialist. 
• Connect with an identity restoration specialist: An identity restoration specialist will gather information about your case. 
• Complete your identity theft claim kit: The claims kit will include a list of documents that Lifelock needs to help resolve your case. 
• Sync with your specialist about next steps: Once you’ve completed your kit, a personal restoration specialist will work with you to initiate fraud investigations with credit bureaus, financial institutions and government authorities, as needed.

I don’t like that it can take up to 72 hours to hear back from a restoration specialist. And I certainly wouldn’t be happy with this time frame after paying $34.99 per month for Ultimate Plus.

That said, the identity restoration process is pretty hands-off after you provide your personal specialist with a list of documents they need. LifeLock offers white glove restoration services, which means the company will do most of the heavy lifting for you and provide you timely updates.

And I do like that each LifeLock plan also comes with identity theft insurance to cover lawyers and experts, personal expenses and stolen funds.

Is LifeLock Ultimate Plus worth the price?

You can get the basics of identity theft protection coverage, and then some, with LifeLock’s Standard plans for individuals and families. If you upgrade to one of LifeLock’s Advantage plans, you get more features like crime alerts in your name and BNPL activity alerts that can bring you further peace of mind. 

LifeLock’s most expensive plan, Ultimate Plus, may be worth it if you want the company’s highest level of insurance –up to $3 million per adult -- bank account takeover alerts, 401(k) account monitoring and extensive credit monitoring. All three bureaus are monitored with this plan, and you’ll receive access to your credit scores and reports with daily updates from Equifax. And if you can take advantage of promotional pricing for annual plans, Ultimate Plus may be worth trying.