Business Insider's personal finance team compared ReliaShield to the best identity theft protection services and found it to be a strong offering based on its round-the-clock customer support and $1 million of coverage to reimburse stolen funds and expenses from identity theft events.
$7.99 monthly or $87.99 annually
- Family plan
- Court records and dark web monitoring for cheap
- 24/7 customer service
- No credit monitoring
- Personal information and dark web monitoring
- Social Security number monitoring
- Change of address monitoring
- Court records monitoring
- Data breach updates
- 24/7/365 customer support and recovery services
- Unlimited restoration services
- $1 million stolen funds and expense reimbursement
- Wallet protection
- Credit report reminders
- Covers all types of ID theft
What is ReliaShield?
Overview and Company Background
Operating since 2018, ReliaShield offers comprehensive identity theft protection that includes credit and account monitoring, fully managed identity restoration service, and coverage for losses and expenses caused by identity theft events. Offering a variety of plans for both individuals and families, the company boasts a 100% recovery success rate with the claim that every customer who has been a victim of identity theft has had their identity and credit history fully restored.
ReliaShield's lowest tier plan lacks some monitoring capability (such as credit monitoring and social media monitoring), but it provides vital dark web and court records monitoring at a relatively low cost of $7.99 monthly or $87.99 annually for a single adult. Other ReliaShield plans offer additional features, but at prices that don't seem commensurate with the extra protection you get. On the positive side, ReliaShield scores points for offering 24/7, U.S.-based service.
Reviews and Ratings
ReliaShield is owned by Zander Insurance, an independent insurance agency based in Nashville, Tennessee. Like Zander, ReliaShield is 49% employee-owned. Neither company has an extensive online reputation, with only a few dozen reviews combined across Trustpilot and the Better Business Bureau. However, ReliaShield has accreditation with the Better Business Bureau, receiving an A+ rating.
Similarly, the ReliaShield mobile app has only around 30 reviews combined between the Google Play store and Apple app store.
-
Aura – All-In-One ID Theft Protection
-
IDShield 3 Bureau Individual Plan
-
IdentityForce UltraSecure+Credit
Key Features and Services
ReliaShield Pros and Cons
ReliaShield offers three different plans, all of which are available for individuals or families. The Essential plan offers a variety of monitoring features, round-the-clock customer support, and up to $1 million of coverage to reimburse stolen funds and expenses from identity theft events. The Prime plan provides additional monitoring features (including credit monitoring from Experian), while the Elite plan adds tri-bureau credit monitoring and alerts for new credit and bank accounts opened in your name.
ReliaShield Essential
- Personal information and dark web monitoring
- Social Security number monitoring
- Change of address monitoring
- Court records monitoring
- Data breach updates
- 24/7/365 customer support and recovery services
- Unlimited restoration services
- $1 million stolen funds and expense reimbursement
- Wallet protection
- Credit report reminders
- Covers all types of ID theft
ReliaShield Essential comes with dark web monitoring to detect whether your personal information has been compromised and is being trafficked online. It also offers monitoring of court records so you'll know if your identity has been associated with criminal activity and notifies you of recent data breaches that could impact you.
The Essential plan comes with ReliaShield's U.S.-based support and recovery services to help you report fraudulent activity and restore your credit file to pre-theft status. You'll also get wallet protection to terminate and replace the contents of your lost or stolen wallet, and insurance that covers events related to fraud, embezzlement, theft, forgery, and stolen funds from your financial accounts.
One notable shortcoming of ReliaShield Essential is the lack of any credit monitoring capability. The plan only provides reminders to check your credit report on your own through some other means. Fortunately, you can access a free credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus through AnnualCreditReport.com for free once a year.
ReliaShield Prime
- All ReliaShield Essential features
- Non-credit loan monitoring
- Neighborhood predator monitoring
- Social media monitoring
- Single-bureau credit monitoring
ReliaShield Prime provides additional monitoring features that you won't get with the Essential plan. Non-credit loan monitoring detects when your personal information is used to apply for alternative lending products, such as payday loans and installment loans. Social media monitoring notifies you of privacy or reputational concerns on your linked social media accounts, and neighborhood predator monitoring tracks registered sex offenders in your area.
The Prime plan also provides credit monitoring from a single credit bureau (Experian) but excludes data from the other two major credit bureaus (Equifax and TransUnion). While some credit monitoring is better than none, some of the best credit monitoring services are free, so this feature doesn't add as much value to ReliaShield Prime as it might appear.
ReliaShield Elite
- All ReliaShield Prime features
- Tri-bureau credit monitoring
- Monthly credit score tracker
- New bank account application notification
- Credit card application notification
The ReliaShield Elite plan steps up ReliaShield's credit monitoring capability by including all three major credit bureaus. ReliaShield advertises that the Elite plan also provides a credit score tracker to help you identify trends over time, as well as notifications when your personal information is used to apply for new banking or credit accounts. However, these features are merely components of credit monitoring, so the jump from one bureau to three is the only substantial difference between the Prime and Elite plans.
Plans and Pricing
ReliaShield is available as either a monthly or annual subscription, with annual plans providing a discount of around 8.3%, which roughly equates to one free month. You can enroll in ReliaShield as either an individual (with coverage for a single adult) or a family (with coverage for two adults and all children under 18 years of age in your household).
Family plans cost between 60% and 90% more than individual plans for both monthly and annual billing options, but cost less than two individual plans purchased separately. Adult members of a family plan have their own individual login credentials.
| Individual plan | Family plan | |
| ReliaShield Essential | $7.99 monthly or $87.99 annually | $14.99 monthly or $164.89 annually |
| ReliaShield Prime | $14.99 monthly or $164.99 annually | $24.99 monthly or $274.89 annually |
| ReliaShield Elite | $21.99 monthly or $241.89 annually | $34.99 monthly or $384.89 annually |
How ReliaShield Works
ReliaShield may offer group discounts and simplified enrollment to businesses and associations of all sizes. Check with your employer and other organizations you're affiliated with prior to enrollment to see if a discount is available to you.
You can cancel your subscription at any time. When you cancel a monthly subscription, you won't receive a refund for any remaining days; instead, your service will continue until your next billing date. When you cancel an annual subscription, your service will continue for the rest of the calendar month, and you may receive a prorated refund for any fully unused months remaining in your membership.
ReliaShield does not advertise a free trial or guarantee. However, you can receive a full refund if you cancel within 14 days of your effective membership date, provided you have not used the recovery service upon enrollment.
You can enroll in ReliaShield through the company's website. After selecting a plan, you'll be prompted for basic personal information (including your name, phone number, address, and date of birth), as well as payment information in the form of a valid credit card number and billing address. Once payment is confirmed, you'll need to verify your identity by providing more sensitive personal information such as your Social Security number.
How ReliaShield Compares
ReliaShield offers all of the features prioritized in Business Insider's ratings of identity theft protection services, but some of those features are only available with the more expensive Elite plan. All ReliaShield plans come with dedicated fraud resolution and up to $1 million of coverage for some losses and expenses related to identity theft. ReliaShield also provides dark web monitoring and court records monitoring across the board, but not credit monitoring. The Essential plan doesn't include any credit monitoring capabilities, while the Prime plan monitors just your Experian file. Only the Elite plan matches major competitors by monitoring all three major credit bureaus.
ReliaShield's monitoring features are all common among identity theft protection services, but its round-the-clock customer support is not. You can reach a live, U.S.-based agent at any time by calling 888-201-1944. That degree of accessibility is a great advantage over competitors that offer limited customer support hours or operate exclusively online.
ReliaShield's pricing is competitive with the best identity theft protection services, with the Essential plan providing an inexpensive way to get dark web monitoring and court records monitoring. However different services offer different tools and features, so a strictly price-based comparison doesn't tell the whole story. Unlike some competitors, ReliaShield does not offer a free trial or satisfaction guarantee.
Read our full explanation of how we rate identity theft protection services.
ReliaShield vs. IdentityForce
Operated by TransUnion, IdentityForce is one of the best identity protection services. It is similarly structured to ReliaShield, with tiers of service that offer increasing levels of protection for higher prices. IdentityForce offers a wide array of identity monitoring and cybersecurity tools that eclipses ReliaShield's offerings. That said, IdentityForce is also far more expensive. Its lowest tier costs $19.95 monthly or $199.50 annually, just slightly cheaper than ReliaShield's most expensive tier.
Read our IdentityForce review.
ReliaShield vs. Aura
Another service included among the best identity theft protection services, Aura is the company to beat. It offers a single tier of service that includes cybersecurity features, identity protection, and tri-bureau protection. All this costs $15 monthly or $144 annually.
ReliaShield's higher tiers of service can't compete with Aura's list of features. However, ReliaShield Essential can offer light identity protection at just over half the price of Aura and still includes dark web monitoring and court records monitoring.
Read our Aura review.
Frequently Asked Questions About ReliaShield
ReliaShield protects against identity theft by using advanced monitoring tools, alerts, and fraud resolution services to protect consumer information against fraud.
ReliaShield offers subscription plans with different levels of protection (Essential, Prime, and Elite) and features such as credit monitoring, application notifications, and data breach updates.
Yes, ReliaShield allows users to cancel their subscriptions at any time and without penalties.
Why You Should Trust Us: How We Evaluated ReliaShield
To rate and review identity theft protection services like ReliaShield, we focus primarily on the must-have features — like fraud resolution, dark web monitoring, and credit monitoring — the price, and the customer service. We also take into account additional features, a company's Better Business Bureau rating, and free trial offerings.
Business Insider's personal finance team is editorially independent, and our opinions are our own.
Read our full explanation of how we rate identity theft protection services.
