We talk a lot about how to make money safely in our monthly financial tip. This month, I’d like to talk about what you need to protect your assets outside of what we do for you. Here at American Retirement Advisors, we exceed every required safeguard of your personal information. But I am guessing that you don’t at home. Most folks don’t do enough to safeguard their most precious asset – their identity. You probably have some protection on your credit cards. You may even have mortgage insurance. But do you have overall blanket protection that will cover all of that and more? Things like even your social media accounts. Your investment properties may not have a mortgage on them. Has your Social Security number been used without your consent? What about the passwords you use on hundreds of different online sites?
Well, there is a type of insurance that can protect against bad guys stealing your identity and spending all your money, and stealing your property. It’s nothing that we sell here. But it is something that you should be aware of. If you’re like me, you’ve heard advertisements for safeguarding products on television and radio. I enrolled in one of these plans a couple of years ago for myself and my wife.
I went online and reviewed all the top sellers at www.identityprotectionreview.com. This website does a pretty good comparative analysis of the main players. interestingly, one of the biggest advertisers came in fourth on the list, LifeLock. While I am not endorsing any companies, I went with number two on the list,
Identity Guard. It was a little less expensive than the number one rated product, and the only thing that I saw that it had that Identity Guard didn’t have was anti-virus and Wi-Fi security. I already have those things with my Internet service provider, so I don’t need them included. I did, however, pay a little bit more to have my real estate titles monitored. Number one on the list is a company called Aura. Both plans come with $1,000,000 identity theft insurance. With everything online, I feel that this is a must-have in this day and age. You need to select an identity plan that fits your needs.