The fight to be your service provider for identity theft protection has heated up as both TrustedId and Identity Guard have improved their offer. Though LifeLock continues to sign up the strong majority of consumers looking for identity protection these new promotions should have quite a few people checking out the competition.

Identity Guard’s Total Service Protection previously had two very effective offers, one that offered the second month for free and another that included Zone Alarm’s Internet Security Suite which sells annually for about $50. Identity Guard is now including Zone Alarm in all Total Service Protection promotions and to match LifeLock if offering the first 30 days free. This is a great offer for those who prefer credit monitoring to fraud alerts, and Identity Guard’s database scanning and internet protection leaves them in a class of their own when compared to other credit monitoring services.

TrustedId has also improved their offer considerably by lowering their prices and putting together a family identity protection package. The new price of $99 per year puts them in the same range as LifeLock and the LoudSiren Debix team. They also put together a package deal for families offering identity protection to all family members who live at the same residence for $190 annually. This can save a large family quite a bit of money. TrustedID will also include grandparents who are living with you in the package and for any family with three adults this is by far the best offer on the market. These moves have strengthened TrustedID’s offer considerably and we expect the new promotion will result in a lot of new customers.

In the last few years identity theft has left a staggering number of victims in its wake and has taken a huge bite out of the American economy with estimates at about $50 billion per year. This will not change quickly as consumers are generally slow to adapt to threats they face especially when it involves their time and money. We do expect to see a decline in the instances and cost of identity theft as more Americans become aware of this horrible crime and decide to take action in terms of protecting themselves and their loved ones. As identity protection companies compete to be your service provider, by strengthening their products and lowering their price, more Americans will avail themselves of their services and the economy and indeed the lives of all Americans will improve as identity theft is reduced drastically.

For more information on any of these companies or the credit protection services they provide please view our identity protection comparison chart.

Identity Guard, the flagship product of Intersections Inc., has been added to our identity theft protection comparison. Dubbed Identity Guard Total Protection this offering is being billed as the first 360 degree identity protection in that it protects your credit information, public records and personal computer with internet security. Intersections protects over 8 million identities and has been a pioneer in this industry for the last 10 years. They are the sole provider of identity theft security to the Identity Theft Assistance Center (ITAC) which is a cooperative initiative of the financial services industry to address the problems of identity theft. In fact, 8 out of the top 10 banks in the United States, have private brand labels of Intersections Identity Guard service.

Identity Guard’s addition may seem a bit unusual to some of our more avid readers as they rely on credit monitoring instead of fraud alerts for credit protection but we wanted to provide consumers with alternative choices. Identity Theft Labs still recommends a fraud alert over credit monitoring as a first line of defense but recognized that people are looking for a multitude of choices and may, for example, place a fraud alert on their own but shop for credit monitoring or personal record scanning services.

Our team chose Identity Guard as they are the best overall credit monitoring service because in addition to three bureau credit monitoring and reports they have excellent internet and database scanning technologies and quarterly credit score updates. They also offer $20,000 worth of identity insurance though there is a $250 deductible. Identity Guard’s protection is $14.99 a month and they are currently offering the second month free but consumers can opt instead for a year of Zone Alarm internet security suite for the same price by clicking here. Zone Alarm will be included every year you remain a member. A full Identity Guard review will be added to our site in the near future.