SAN FRANCISCO—Companies that offer identity theft protection services have benefitted from fraudsters’ focus on the U.S., with consumers spending over $1.4 billion on ID protection subscriptions between late 2013 and 2014, according to Javelin Strategy & Research.
Another 23.9 million individuals held a free subscription to such services, the company reports. In 2014, 2.5 times more consumers were notified that their personally identifiable information had been compromised in a data breach than in 2013.
The results of Javelin Strategy & Research’s eighth annual Identity Protection Services study show that consumer adoption of ID protection services is growing but is still experiencing high churn rate. Javelin benchmarked 16 providers of direct-to-consumer identity protection services and found EZShield, LifeLock, LegalShield and several others outshined the rest of the market.
“Subscribers are well educated, wealthy individuals that are comfortable with new technology,” said Al Pascual, director of fraud and security at Javelin Strategy & Research. “Mobile functionality can strengthen the customer relationship, as well as differentiate the service.”
Nearly one-third of all subscribers withdrew from the direct-to-consumer market in 2014 for a number of reasons, Javelin said. Yet there were several ID protection service vendors that Javelin benchmarked top 16 vendors. Javelin examined the changing fraud landscape and ranked vendors in three categories: prevention, detection, and resolution.
- EZShield maintained its title of Best in Class Identity Protection Services Leader for the second year in a row. EZShield took top honors in both the prevention and resolution categories.
2015 Identity Protection Services Leader award was earned in three categories (winners listed alphabetically):
- Prevention: Affinion Group, EZShield, IdentityForce, LegalShield, and LifeLock
- Detection: Equifax, EZShield, Intersections, IDWatchdog and LifeLock
- Resolution: EZShield, IdentityForce, keepmyID, LifeLock, LegalShield, and myFICO