4 ms·
On the bright side, identity theft insurance is very inexpensive because costly claims are rare. Most homeowners insurance policies include identity theft cover
by travoc 5y ago
On the bright side, identity theft insurance is very inexpensive because costly claims are rare. Most homeowners insurance policies include identity theft coverage.
- edoceo 5y agoI have to buy insurance in case the financial institution responsible for detecting the fraud fails and blame me?
- CrazyCatDog 5y agoAbsolutely—AFLAK for identity insurance. The free attach plans are pretty thin, most retail contracts will include their man hours to waste away with the credit card companies and fair Isaac / credit bureaus — but it’s obviously more $ than “free with purchase”
- supertrope 5y agoA de facto protection racket.
- otterley 5y agoThere are lots of reasons for insurance. One kind of insurance (liability) is to protect you in case you screw up. Other kinds of insurance (e.g., uninsured motorist, fire, etc.) are to protect you in case other people screw up.
- skeeter2020 5y agoTHe cost of identity theft is only partially monetary. A huge component is the ongling (sometimes lifetime) fight to reclaim your person, reputation and wel... identity. My homeowner policy may cover the cost of a fraudulently issued credit card, but no one at my insurance company will spend days, weeks and years trying to straighten out my credit issues and chasing down the many knock-on effects the fraud is going to cause.
- filmgirlcw 5y agoAgreed. I was the victim of identity theft when I was 11 or 12. Someone opened up a bunch of accounts in my name and went wild. My mom spent countless hours on the phone with the credit agencies back then (which is more than most people would have done), got in touch with lawyers, etc., but it didn’t actually solve anything because when I was 18, there was still stuff on my credit report, which took another year and another period of resubmitting the same paperwork, affidavits, and other information to say that no, when I was 12 years old, I did not open an account with X credit card company or rent an apartment with X place, which delayed my own ability to get credit as an adult. More than 20 years later, I still have to pay for credit monitoring services because sometimes I’ll see stuff from the 1990s resurface and I have a backlog of documents that I have to deal with to get stuff straightened out. When I moved to Seattle a few years ago, suddenly my credit report was empty. As in totally blank. I didn’t have any open credit cards at the time (personal choice; I’ve sense had a change of heart and have embraced trying to use credit cards to my advantage, always paying them off each month), but it showed nothing. Which was weird for a person in her 30s. This made renting an apartment difficult, despite having nearly double the required income. It turns out, when removing false claims off the report for the umpteenth time, everything was erased. I eventually got that sorted out but I still have no idea if my credit report is actually accurate, except that my score is in the 800s now thanks to said credit cards. The only upside is that I’ve become so desensitized to the entire process that every time Equifax or some big database is hacked, I’m almost blasé about it. I’ve gone through this so many times, I know the drill. I know the time sink. I know the process. Whatever. But insurance doesn’t solve that. It’ll cover the cost of the monitoring services and maybe some legal costs in the event you have to actually take something to court, but it won’t recover the time you have to deal with the insurer or the agencies themselves. In fact, I’d gladly pay a fee if it meant that not only would my shit be monitored, but someone would sit on the phone and submit all the paperwork on my behalf. Because that’s the part that is the most infuriating.