LifeLock Review: A Hands-On Test in 2024

LifeLock Features, Plans, and Prices

When we started looking at LifeLock plans, it seemed simple with three tiers to choose from. Once we started looking at the site more, however, we kept finding other options. We found 18 plans in total. Three LifeLock tiers that can be bundled with Norton 360 with an individual, couple, and family plan for each. If you’re looking for a family plan, take a look at our breakdown of LifeLock’s family plans.

We’ve tested over 20 identity theft protection services, so we’re experts at comparing plans — but comparing LifeLock’s 18 options was difficult.

>> Read More: Best Family Identity Theft Protection in 2024

We needed to make a table to compare them effectively. Here’s an overview of LifeLock’s plans.

Since we signed up for LifeLock Ultimate Plus, we got to test all of the company’s services. Let’s go over what you can expect from LifeLock’s capabilities.

Identity Monitoring

Before getting to the impressive coverage LifeLock offers, we’ll cover how LifeLock keeps your identity safe so you don’t need the coverage.

The information LifeLock used when monitoring our identity.

When you sign up for LifeLock, it asks for basic information such as your name, Social Security number (SSN), address, and phone number. The company uses that information to scour the web for suspicious instances of your details. If you missed that step when you signed up or you don’t have all your information ready, you can add it in at any time. Just go to the Monitored Info tab of your account.

Here’s what our LifeLock dark web monitoring alert looked like.

About two hours after we set up our account, we got our first alert. Our information ended up on the Dark Web. We bought some cryptocurrency a few years ago, so we imagine that’s how it got there. Once we clicked the “Review This Activity” button, we found out the only information LifeLock found was an old email address we no longer use.

On the page where it told us which email address it found, it also gave us tips on how to secure our information. We thought the alert was insightful and easy to understand — although that first alert made our heart skip a beat until we looked into it further.

LifeLock explained our alert and told us what to do next.

We received an alert from only the Dark Web Monitoring feature, but LifeLock looked for our information in plenty of other places. Below is an overview of the other ways LifeLock alerts you of risks to your identity.

• Identity and SSN alerts: Instead of monitoring a specific place, identity and SSN alerts monitor activity related to your Social Security number, such as a background or credit check. The company also looks for any instances of your SSN across its databases.
• Fictitious identity monitoring: Criminals have evolved from stealing an entire identity. Now, they’ll use pieces of a real identity along with fake information to create what’s called a “synthetic identity.” LifeLock looked for our information that could be used to create synthetic identities, such as old addresses.
• Social media monitoring: This feature has its own tab. What we found interesting was that it monitored for more than identity-related issues. LifeLock also monitors for hate speech and mentions of self-harm. That makes it good for parents.

• Bank account activity alerts: We linked our savings and checking accounts to our LifeLock profile. That lets them monitor the activity in those accounts for signs of fraud and then send alerts immediately.
• 401(k) and investment activity alerts: Just like we linked our savings and checking accounts, we could also link any 401(k) and investment accounts so LifeLock can monitor them too. If you want that capability, LifeLock is one of the only companies to offer it.
• Bank account takeover alerts: Account takeovers are when online criminals try to break into your online banking accounts using your username and password. LifeLock looks for suspicious login activity to prevent the attacks.

Credit Monitoring

We were pretty impressed with LifeLock’s credit-monitoring capabilities. There are a few ways LifeLock helps protect your credit. First, it can help you monitor your credit score and lines of credit. Second, it can help you freeze your credit with two bureaus. Third, the unique Credit Lock feature lets you put a hold on your TransUnion credit file with the click of a button.

Monitoring Your Credit Score

We could monitor our credit score, current loans, and past loans in a simple interface with LifeLock.

With an easy interface, LifeLock lets you keep an eye on your credit. We could see our credit score to monitor fluctuations, current lines of credit, and past lines of credit. That way, LifeLock would show us if any lines of credit get taken out in our name that we didn’t apply for. Thankfully, that never happened while we were testing LifeLock.

Freezing Your Credit

LifeLock could help us activate a freeze on our Equifax or Experian credit file

You may have noticed that there are three credit bureaus, but you can only freeze your credit with two on LifeLock’s dashboard. That’s because the company offers a unique way to freeze your credit with the third bureau, TransUnion. We’ll get to that in a bit. If we chose to freeze our Equifax and Experian credit files, we would have to wait a bit to unfreeze them before we could apply for a line of credit. We have a workaround to minimize that issue using the Credit Lock feature though.

LifeLock’s Credit Lock

Unique to LifeLock, we could temporarily freeze and unfreeze our TransUnion credit file with the press of a button.

This is where LifeLock’s credit-protection capabilities shine. Since Credit Lock lets us temporarily freeze our TransUnion credit file and unfreeze it immediately, we could have frozen our files with the other two bureaus and then we could still use our TransUnion credit file to apply for a new line of credit in an emergency. The feature also lets us lock any payday loans from being taken out in our name.

Restoration Services

No identity theft protection service is 100 percent effective. There’s always a risk of your identity being stolen. We can reduce that risk, but we can’t get rid of it. That’s why the top identity theft protection services all offer identity theft coverage, providing reimbursement for legal expenses, stolen funds, and personal expenses.

We got $1 million in coverage for each of those three categories when we signed up for the Ultimate Plus plan. That high level of coverage put it on our list of the best identity restoration services. You’ll get $1 million of coverage for legal expenses and experts no matter which plan you choose. The coverage for each of the other two categories is $25,000 for Standard or Select and $100,000 for Advantage.

LifeLock made it easy to submit an identity theft claim on its dashboard.

Thankfully, our identity stayed safe while testing LifeLock, so we can’t discuss our experience making a claim. The company has a full page dedicated to making claims, though, which made us feel confident that the process would run smoothly. To make a claim, you would need to call LifeLock and describe the claim over the phone. They’ll then connect you with an identity restoration expert to help you get your identity back.

Device Security

Any LifeLock plan can be bundled with Norton 360. That’s where any device security you’ll get from your LifeLock plan will come from. With Norton 360, you get access to Norton Antivirus and Norton VPN.

The VPN would help keep us anonymous online. It encrypts our connection to the internet and routes our connection through a secure VPN server, masking our online activities. We weren’t very impressed with Norton’s VPN though. It worked fine, but it has servers in only 28 countries, whereas NordVPN, for example, has servers in over 100 countries.

The number of devices you can install Norton 360 on depends on the tier of LifeLock you bundle it with. We thought it would have made more sense to pair it with the number of people covered in the LifeLock plan instead of the tier.

If you’re getting the Family Standard plan, we recommend skipping Norton 360 since five devices won’t be enough for a full family. It’s a great value when added to the Individual Standard plan, though, and it can work for couples too. That’s why LifeLock is one of our favorite identity theft protection services for couples. We always like support for unlimited devices, though, so we thought the Ultimate Plus plan bundled with Norton 360 would work well for any number of users.

Purchasing LifeLock

Before you buy a LifeLock subscription, we recommend signing up for a free trial. That’s what we did, but surprisingly we ran into an issue when signing up. We initially tried to sign up on a Mozilla Firefox browser. When we clicked “Start 30-day trial,” the “Total Due Today” section still showed the full amount. That was confusing, because the fine print says that the “free trial begins as soon as your transaction is completed.” That made us think they were going to charge and then refund us.

We wanted to be safe, though, so we checked with another browser. We pulled it up on Chrome and the “Total Due Today” section said $0.00. Crisis averted. Turns out we would have been charged the full amount if we had checked out on Firefox.

Before checking out, LifeLock asked us for personal information to monitor.

Getting Started With LifeLock

Setting up LifeLock is a cakewalk. We signed up in three steps, including entering our credit card information. After those three steps, LifeLock asked us for our Social Security number and date of birth. You should know those numbers by heart, which makes it easy to sign up. You can then add more information for LifeLock to monitor later.

When we were ready to add more information, we went to the Monitored Info tab on our dashboard. LifeLock told us the information it needed, and we filled out every field on the form. That’s the quickest way for LifeLock to start protecting your identity.

LifeLock’s Financial Monitoring tab let us link our credit cards and bank accounts so it could monitor them.

After entering our personal details, we navigated to the Financial Monitoring tab. That’s where we could link our bank accounts and credit cards to LifeLock. Once linked, LifeLock monitored all our activity for potential fraud.

Online Dashboard

We liked using the online dashboard most when managing our identity protection with LifeLock. It gave us a solid interface and we like typing on a keyboard so inputting our information that way was easier than on our phone or tablet. The layout made sense, making it easy to find all the features we needed, whether it was unlocking our TransUnion credit file or reviewing old alerts.

LifeLock’s dashboard showed us key information from each submenu.

As soon as we log in to our account, we get an overview of our current status. Alerts are at the top, followed by our credit information. That made sense to us. At the bottom of the dashboard, we liked the checklist of monitored info we could add.

LifeLock Mobile App

When we pulled up our Samsung Galaxy smartphone, opened the Google Play store, and typed in LifeLock, we were surprised to see an app rated 4.6 out of 5. That’s not because we have low expectations for LifeLock, but most identity theft insurance apps don’t get great reviews.

After we downloaded and installed it, we immediately saw why it got such great reviews. When we first opened it, we were prompted to purchase a plan or log in. We logged in, since we bought our plan on our laptop. We were then asked to set up a PIN for logging in more quickly (or we could use our fingerprint). Finally, LifeLock asked us for our permission to send notifications before bringing us to the mobile dashboard.

Unfortunately, the app did not allow us to take screenshots, so we can’t show you what it looks like. It’s the same dashboard as the online app, except brought to a smaller screen without being cluttered. We also liked that we could contact customer support from the app in the three-bar menu.

Final Thoughts on Our Time With LifeLock

LifeLock is a high-quality identity theft protection service that we would recommend to our friends and family. We think it works best for people with a larger budget who can afford the Ultimate Plus plan to make the most of LifeLock’s unique capabilities, such as $3 million in coverage and three-bureau credit monitoring.

For people shopping on a budget, though, LifeLock’s Standard plan doesn’t stand out other than for its high price. That’s not a good reason to stand out. The plan is quality, but you can get more for less with other providers. If you’re looking for a budget option, check out our review of Aura and then read our Aura vs. LifeLock comparison, where we highlight their differences.