LifeLock vs InfoArmor Comparison

There are many different approaches to protecting your identity, but it’s important that you do so. After all, identity theft is on the rise, and the impacts are becoming so widespread it should be considered a national crisis.

But in this digital age when commerce and even our social lives are conducted almost exclusively online, how can the average person protect themselves? Well, many smart consumers are looking to services to handle these complex processes for them — and with great success.

One of the biggest names in the game is NortonLifeLock. In our hands-on review of NortonLifeLock, we found they offer a whole host of services including dark web monitoring, digital privacy protections, and financial firewalls, as well as robust identity theft protections like triple-bureau credit monitoring, social security number alerts, and home title fraud protection.

But Norton isn’t the only game in town. There are certainly some well-known competitors out there. To get familiar with them you can read our Identity Guard review or our in-depth look at IdentityForce, but there are also some newcomers making a splash. One of the newest and, in our opinion, the most promising is Allstate Identity Protection (formerly InfoArmor).

InfoArmor and Allstate: Some Context

InfoArmor partnered with Allstate in 2018. Today, many of AllState’s identity protection services are offered as a benefit to employees through their organization, and they also offer enterprise-level data protection for companies.

AllState Identity Protection

For the purposes of this comparison, though, we’re just going to be looking at the consumer side of things — and we’ll be referring to this product by its new name — Allstate Identity Protection. It can get a little confusing if you’re searching for the individual or family service, so just understand the new moniker is a pretty big umbrella.

With that said, let’s take a look at how the old vanguard stacks up against the young upstart.

NortonLifeLock vs Allstate Identity Protection: Powerful Protections, Interesting Features

One of the most interesting similarities between NortonLifeLock and Allstate Identity Protection is that both services take online privacy very seriously and prioritize minimizing your exposure while browsing. This makes sense since the vast majority of identity theft today takes place in digital spaces.

Norton LifeLock Dashboard

With that context, both services offer breach notifications, meaning they’ll alert you if an organization like a social media platform or an online vendor becomes the victim of a data breach that might expose your sensitive information. Both companies also offer actionable information on what to do should your information be found in a breach, so you’ll know what steps to take to minimize risk. This could be anything from simply changing your login information to contacting your financial institutions, which — by the way — both services do the latter for you.

This prioritization is pretty unique in the identity theft protection space. When we reviewed Experian IdentityWorks, for instance, we found a more traditional approach that focused more on financials than online privacy. That said, Allstate Identity Protection and NortonLifeLock take different approaches to this prioritization of online privacy, but we’ll have more on that in the next section.

NortonLifeLock and Allstate Identity Protection also offer advanced coverage for what most would consider the more traditional aspects of identity protection. That includes dark web monitoring for your sensitive information, like social security numbers and bank account info. Both services also keep an eye on your retirement accounts — something most services don’t do.

Norton LifeLock Device and Storage Breakdown

While there are slight variations to the pieces of information both Allstate Identity Protection and NortonLifeLock keep an eye on, we’d consider both protections to be more than complete with no major gaps to speak of. Well — maybe just one, but we’ll discuss that in the differences category below. Before that, though, we want to talk about the similarities between their recovery and remediation services.

While the robust protections and high-tech monitoring are all important aspects in selecting an identity theft protection service, what you’re really paying for is the remediation services and insurance. Luckily, both NortonLifeLock and Allstate Identity Protection offer top-shelf restoration and insurance packages.

Both provide up to $1 million in insurance to cover personal expenses related to recovery. Although, it should be said NortonLifeLock edges out Allstate Identity Protection here when it comes to stolen funds reimbursement. The former offers up to $1 million while the latter only offers up to $500,000.

That said, both also offer 24/7 support with white-glove remediation services. Should you fall victim to fraudsters, both NortonLifeLock and Allstate Identity Protection have experts at the ready to assist you in making everything whole again. If you’re interested in this aspect, consider reading our list of identity theft protection solutions with great restoration services.

So that about does it with the similarities between the two services. Let’s start unpacking their differences so you can get an idea of what sets NortonLifeLock and Allstate Identity Protection apart from each other.

Norton LifeLock – No Unread Alerts

NortonLifeLock and Allstate Identity Protection: Different Approaches, Same Goals

One of the biggest and most obvious differences between NortonLifeLock and Allstate Identity Protection is the latter’s “digital footprint” tool. This is a unique feature to Allstate Identity Protection — something we’ve never seen before.

What it does is compiles a list of all your active and dormant accounts as well as your online activity, giving you a visualization of your presence on the internet. It helps you uncover which companies are collecting your personal information and will alert you to any vulnerabilities. We have to say, we love this tool. It really helps privacy-minded folks take back control.

That said, NortonLifeLock also helps protect your online privacy, albeit in more traditional ways. They offer tried and true tools like safe browsing plug-ins, virus protection, password vaults, and VPNs in their suite of services. For old-school cybersecurity folks, these are familiar faces. For those just getting into the privacy game, you’ll become well acquainted quickly. And we will say that NortonLifeLock really delivers here.

Another major difference between NortonLifeLock and Allstate Identity Protection is their prioritization of credit monitoring and protection. NortonLifeLock offers triple-bureau reports and monitoring, while Allstate Identity Protection only offers single-bureau protections. Remember when we said there might be a gap in Allstate Identity Protection’s coverage? This is what we were talking about.

We always recommend looking for a service that offers triple bureau credit protection. The three bureaus — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — monitor similar data points to determine creditworthiness, but not all three are looking for the same things at the same time. Meaning that if something suspicious shows up in one report, it might not in the others. So it’s always best to keep an eye on all three bureaus. Hats off to NortonLifeLock here.

NortonLifeLock also edges out Allstate Identity Protection on the credit side of things by providing users with the ability to lock their credit reports with the touch of a button. While this functionality is available to anyone who wants to contact the credit monitoring agencies, there’s something to be said for the convenience of having it at your fingertips.

What’s a credit lock? Glad you asked. Locking your credit prevents bad actors from opening up new lines of credit or taking out loans in your name. This is one of the most powerful tools everyday consumers have for protecting themselves from identity theft, and we recommend everyone take advantage of it.

That said, an advantage Allstate Identity Protection has is its ability to monitor social media accounts including reputation monitoring — which keeps an eye out for explicit content, vulgarity, and instances of cyberbullying — as well as account takeover protection — which alerts customers if it looks like someone else has been using their account.

Social media monitoring is a great tool, and serves a two-fold purpose. Individually speaking, you’ll be alerted if someone has gained access to your account and is trying to tarnish your reputation by making offensive posts. It can also help you monitor someone else’s (like your teenager’s) account passively. If they post something vulgar or depicting something illicit or violent, you’ll be notified instead of having to actively watch over their every move online.

Word to the wise, though. If you go this route, make sure you’re notifying them that you’re doing it. Obviously you don’t want to damage your relationship with them by “snooping,” but you can also run into digital privacy issues for setting this type of monitoring up on someone else’s account without their consent.

AllState InfoArmor Features

So that should give you a pretty good idea of how NortonLifeLock and Allstate Identity Protection approach similar problems in different ways. Before we get on to our recommendation, though, let’s breakdown their plans and pricing.

NortonLifeLock vs Allstate: Tiers, Services, and Pricing

We’ll start with Allstate Identity Protection since their breakdown is a little simpler than NortonLifeLock’s. Here’s a quick punch-list chart that breaks down their tiers, services, and pricing.

Allstate Identity Protection Subscription Plans

As you can see, both the Essentials and Premier service tiers offer pretty robust protections for reasonable prices. If you choose the cheaper option, though, you’ll miss out on credit card and bank account transaction monitoring, social media alerts, and your stolen funds reimbursement check might be a little light.

Now let’s break down NortonLifeLock. Since their services are a little more technical, we’ve got a handy NortonLifeLock pricing guide for your review, or you can take a look at the highlight chart below.

NortonLifeLock Subscription Plans

Since NortonLifeLock offers multiple tiers of service, it’s a little easier to purchase only what you’re going to use. However, it’s worth pointing out that the features drop off pretty significantly the cheaper you go. Also worth noting is the variable pricing plan. It gets pretty pricey after that first year.

So with all this information, which service should you choose?

Our Final Verdict On NortonLifeLock and Allstate Identity Protection

First, we have to say that we love both services, but for us, NortonLifeLock ever so slightly beats out Allstate Identity Protection. Their triple-bureau credit monitoring and $1,000,000 vs. $500,000 in stolen funds reimbursement insurance sealed the deal.

While Allstate Identity Protection offers great services and unique features, they fell slightly short of the mark for us. But that’s not to say NortonLifeLock is right for everyone. It really comes down to exactly what you’re looking to protect and how much you’re looking to spend. We recommend taking a close look at your priorities before you make your call. If you need some reading material to help you get those priorities organized, a great place to start is our best identity theft protection buyers guide, or you can comparison shop ID protection using our handy tool.

FAQs about NortonLifeLock and Allstate Identity Protection