Identity Theft Insurance Offers Protection in an Increasingly Digital World By Eastbridge Consulting Group, Inc.
Online shopping, cell phones and credit cards make life easier for millions of Americans — but they also make it easier to fall victim to identity theft and fraud. The Federal Trade Commission reports recorded instances of identity theft have soared by 584% over the last 20 years. Credit card fraud is the most common type of identity theft with nearly half a million cases reported last year, while more than 422 million people were impacted by data breaches in 2022 — a 44% jump from 2021. And it’s costing us a lot of money: $20 billion last year, according to a report by Javelin Strategy & Research. It's no surprise, then, that identity theft protection insurance has become a popular voluntary benefit. In fact, it has the highest sales potential index — calculated by comparing the percent of employers that don’t offer it and the percent interested in offering it on a voluntary basis — of all nontraditional insurance products.
Employee ownership of identity theft protection is the highest of all additional products, according to Eastbridge’s 2023 “Market Vision™—The Employee Viewpoint©” report. Ownership of these voluntary benefits hasn’t quite recovered to prepandemic levels, possibly due to inflation pressure on employee wallet share.
