LifeLock Ultimate Plus provides identity protection that no other service can match.
It scans your files with all three major credit agencies and has lots of monitors and alerts. It watches over your credit cards, bank accounts and investment funds, scanning the open and the dark web. You can begin the process of freezing your credit right from LifeLock’s interface, and there’s an inexpensive option to add Norton 360 antivirus protection.
In the event of an identity emergency, LifeLock Ultimate Plus promises up to $1 million to help get your life and credit back on track. But LifeLock, by far the most expensive service we’ve reviewed, comes up a bit short in helping you keep track of your credit.
LifeLock provides monthly credit scores only from Equifax, and scans your files with all three credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — for anything alarming.
But full credit reports from the bureaus come only once per year, the same as you can normally get for free from annualcreditreport.com. (While the coronavirus crisis continues, you can get those reports once a week.) LifeLock also provides Experian and TransUnion credit scores only yearly.
During the winter of 2019, I signed up for and used Ultimate Plus for three months. I paid for the monthly plan and kept an eye on LifeLock’s alerts and notifications through its online interface, mobile apps and text messages. Despite some caveats, LifeLock Ultimate Plus is one of the best identity theft protection services you can buy.
Updated with addition of Phone Takeover Monitoring. This review was originally published June 27, 2019.
LifeLock costs and what’s covered
LifeLock in 2018 merged with consumer antivirus company Norton, which has created a bewildering array of options and some recent price hikes. You can see a list of more than two dozen different plans at https://www.lifelock.com/legal/pricing/, but not all of those seem to be available for purchase through the LifeLock website.
One of the most basic LifeLock plans, LifeLock Standard, costs $11.99 a month ($125 a year). As with all these plans, there’s a discount for the first year of service and for Tom’s Guide readers.
The Standard plan includes up to $1 million to help restore your identity, as well as $25,000 for lost funds and another $25,000 for personal expenses. It monitors your Equifax credit file and sends alerts if your personal identifiers (such as your Social Security number, street address or bank account number) show up in the wrong place. But you will get no credit reports or credit scores.
For $14.99 monthly or $150 yearly, you can get LifeLock Select, a version of LifeLock Standard that adds Norton 360 antivirus software and 24/7 tech support.
At $22.99 a month ($240 a year), LifeLock’s Advantage plan keeps the $1 million limit for restoration experts but ups the wages-and-funds reimbursement to a maximum of $100,000 each. It also notifies you of data breaches, any crimes that might have been committed in your name and anyone trying to use your identity.
LifeLock Advantage also includes Phone Takeover Monitoring, a new feature that began rolling out in January 2021. It prevents SIM-swapping and port-out scams in which strangers hijack your phone number, often with the intention of hijacking cryptocurrency or mobile-payment accounts.
On the main part of the LifeLock website, the Advantage plan is bundled with Norton 360 antivirus software, which bumps the plan up to $24.99 monthly or $250 yearly. But you can still go to a different LifeLock Store page that gives you Norton-free options for Advantage and the next level up, LifeLock Ultimate Plus.
Like the Standard plan, the Advantage plan monitors only your Equifax credit file, but it adds an Equifax credit report and Equifax-based VantageScore 3.0 credit score once per year. It also monitors bank and credit card transactions for fraud.
LifeLock’s Ultimate Plus plan costs $34.99 a month, but is $340 a year without Norton 360, $350 with the antivirus software. You get up to $1 million of identity insurance and recovery of lost funds, as well as annual reports from all three major credit agencies.
You also get annual Vantage 3.0 scores based on the credit reports from Experian and TransUnion, and you get the Equifax VantageScore 3.0 score monthly. The Ultimate Plus plan also monitors bank, credit card and investment accounts; alerts you of sex offenders moving into your neighborhood; and provides priority support.
Just to confuse things further, all three of the basic plans without Norton 360 can be instead be bundled with Norton Security Online, a stripped-down version of Norton antivirus software for Windows, Mac and Android.
Norton Security Online costs an additional $1 per month for LifeLock Standard and an extra $2 per month for LifeLock Advantage. There’s no monthly price difference between Ultimate Plus with or without Norton Security Online or Norton 360, but the yearly price of LifeLock Ultimate plus is $345, exactly midway between the yearly price of the two other options.
You can also just skip over to the Norton website and pay the same prices for LifeLock Advantage or Ultimate Plus with the full Norton 360 antivirus suite, which includes online storage, backup software and unlimited VPN service.
Considering that Norton 360 Deluxe runs for $100 per year just by itself, opting for it along with a LifeLock package might be a no-brainer if you’re in the market for antivirus software.
There’s no LifeLock family plan, but with the LifeLock Junior plan, you can add a child under 18 to your regular plan for an extra $5.99 a month or $66 per year. It mirrors the Ultimate Plus plan’s identity-protection features. Unfortunately, the LifeLock Senior plan, which had let you cover either of your parents (over age 55) for $19.99 a month, has been discontinued.
LifeLock plan comparison chart
LifeLock Standard | LifeLock Advantage | LifeLock Ultimate Plus | |
Monthly cost | $12 | $25 | $35 |
Yearly cost | $125 | $250 | $350 |
Credit reports | None | Equifax | Equifax, Experian, TransUnion |
Credit bureaus monitored | Equifax | Equifax | Equifax, Experian, TransUnion |
Frequency of credit reports | None | Yearly | Yearly |
Frequency of credit scores | None | Equifax, yearly | Equifax monthly, other two yearly |
Type of credit score | None | VantageScore 3.0 | VantageScore 3.0 |
Bank, card accounts monitored | No | Yes | Yes |
Black-market monitoring | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Sex offender alert | No | No | Yes |
Data breach alerts | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Security software | Norton 360 antivirus with slightly pricier Select plan | Norton 360 antivirus | Norton 360 antivirus |
2FA | No | No | No |
Lost wallet assistance | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Investment account monitoring | No | No | Yes |
Max. ID-theft coverage | $1 million | $1 million | $1 million |
LifeLock BBB rating
In the 10 years after LifeLock’s founding in 2005, the company was fined more than $100 million by the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive advertising and related charges. You may also remember LifeLock co-founder Todd Davis putting his Social Security number in ads and daring anyone to steal his identity. It was stolen eight times.
Since LifeLock’s acquisition by Norton parent company Symantec in 2017, the company has toned down the theatrics and improved its customer service and support. Its Better Business Bureau rating has risen from a B to an A-, although there are still new complaints about unauthorized charges. LifeLock got a 3.5-star rating from the for-profit ConsumerAffairs website.
LifeLock credit scores and monitoring
By monitoring customer files with all three of the major credit-reporting bureaus, LifeLock Ultimate Plus matches the other premium identity-protection services we reviewed. It will let you know if anything appears that shouldn’t be there.
But again, even LifeLock’s most expensive plan offers full, updated credit reports only yearly. You can get the same number of credit reports for free through www.annualcreditreport.com.
Considering that rival service IdentityForce gives you credit reports quarterly, and PrivacyGuard gives you a “merged” credit report monthly, LifeLock doesn’t present a good deal.
LifeLock Ultimate Plus does offer a VantageScore 3.0 credit score based on your Equifax file every month, but you’ll have to wait a whole year to see your credit scores based on your Experian and TransUnion files. VantageScore 3.0 uses a different calculation model from the FICO scores that define consumer creditworthiness for most lenders.
LifeLock has the most comprehensive personal-information monitoring of any identity-protection service we’ve reviewed. It scans for your Social Security number, date of birth and bank account numbers on the internet and the “dark web.”
It monitors payday loans, U.S. Postal Service address changes, internet “people search sites” like Intelius and Spokeo, and court records for signs of your personal information. It even monitors the fairly new industry of peer-to-peer lending, in which online brokerages match borrowers with private lenders.
However, there’s still no option to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) to protect your LifeLock account, even though the company told us last year that this was a priority. Unfortunately, few identity-protection services offer 2FA. LifeLock told us this year that the Norton 2FA process would eventually be offered for LifeLock accounts.
By contrast, IdentityForce uses 2FA to reduce the risk of account takeovers, and PrivacyGuard provides a faint imitation by requiring you to input the last four digits of your Social Security number to log in.
LifeLock also lacks a financial calculator or credit simulator. Other identity-protection services offer these useful tools to let customers try out scenarios, such as how to repair bad credit or whether to lease or buy a car.
LifeLock insurance and services
Like many of its competitors, LifeLock Ultimate Plus will spend up to $1 million on lawyers, experts and investigators to help you get back your credit and identity.
The plan covers the costs of replacing identity documents, reasonable travel expenses to get to court or to meet with lawyers, unpaid leave from work, and the cost of any elder or child care you have to pay for in the course of recovering your identity. This plan will even replace your stolen wallet, handbag or purse.
There’s another pot of $1 million to reimburse you for any lost funds that credit card companies or banks refuse to cover. This can be a financial lifesaver, but most premium identity-protection services offer something similar.
LifeLock notifications and alerts
LifeLock’s user alerts are deep but not overwhelming. They can come as email messages, text messages, synthesized voice calls or mobile-app push notifications, or as alerts on your LifeLock account web page.
The alerts notify you of bank-account and credit card activity, fraudulent loan applications and account takeovers, and recent data breaches. You can also set up alerts for purchases that exceed a monetary threshold you designate.
LifeLock has sex-offender alerts, but unlike IDShield and PrivacyGuard, it doesn’t show you the offenders’ residences on a map.
Over my three-month test period, LifeLock sent me eight alerts that ranged from credit inquiries to possible overspending on a credit card. I also got several informational emails.
LifeLock setup
LifeLock’s sign-up procedure was quick and easy. I filled in my name, address, email address, date of birth, Social Security number and phone number. After I agreed to the company’s terms, I could add partners, children and parents at an extra cost.
After I paid with a credit card (LifeLock also takes PayPal), I created an account password and added more credit cards, bank and investment accounts, phone numbers, and email addresses to monitor. The entire process took just 5 and a half minutes.
LifeLock’s greatly improved service and support provides 24-hour priority response with the Ultimate Plus plan, and my emailed question was quickly answered. Support technicians can be reached via a toll-free number, email or chat, and the website is chock-full of videos, tips and troubleshooting help.
LifeLock interface and utilities
LifeLock’s web interface is one of the best in the business, but like many other identity-protection services, it tries to pack too much into a single page.
At the top of your account’s home screen are Alerts and Notifications, plus a green checkmark if nothing is amiss. Under those are the current Vantage 3.0 score from Equifax and a button to start the process of freezing or unfreezing your credit files.
You’ll still have to fill out a form with each of the credit-reporting agencies to freeze your files, but LifeLock at least guides you to the right online pages, saving you the valuable time having to hunt for them.
The Credit Score and Report section shows not only your current Equifax VantageScore, but also how that score has changed since you first subscribed to LifeLock.
I could see inquiries from two years ago and previous addresses that went back 35 years. My overall amount of debt was broken down by credit card, mortgage and installment credit. The page has a link to Equifax’s phone number, so you can call if you spot an error.
If you have an identity emergency, check the ID Restoration section, which offers a record of all correspondence and actions. Regardless of the plan you choose, LifeLock provides a dedicated case manager for identity restoration.
The LifeLock Android and iOS mobile apps are low-resolution, and you’ve got to manually expand them to full screen on a tablet. They display new alerts front and center, and you can access Credit, Monitoring and Support through links from the front page.
LifeLock cancellation: It can be a hassle
At the end of the test period, I canceled my LifeLock subscription by going to the Manage Account section and scrolling to the bottom to click on Cancel Membership Renewal. However, the company wouldn’t let me proceed until I gave a reason for ending our relationship.
The online process went smoothly, but a LifeLock representative called me the next day to try to talk me out of canceling. It took nearly a week for me to receive an emailed confirmation of my cancellation.
LifeLock bottom line
LifeLock Ultimate Plus is worth it if you’re really paranoid about having your identity stolen. No other service matches LifeLock’s comprehensive monitoring of personal data. We also really liked its new one-click feature to start a credit freeze. And if you get Norton Security Deluxe with it (essentially for free), that might justify the $350 yearly subscription price.
But IdentityForce UltraSecure+Credit provides 90 percent of the monitoring, and much more credit-file information, for $100 less yearly. If you’re primarily interested in credit monitoring, try the even cheaper IDShield Individual 3 Credit Bureau Monitoring.
Image credit: Tom’s Guide