ReliaShield Review 2024: Good, But There’s Even Better…

Lauren Sakiyama
Writer
Brandon King
Editor
Last Updated March 7, 2024

ReliaShield is everything it claims to be – a comprehensive, service-centered identity protection service at a great price. 

However, after a few months of using ReliaShield’s services, it became clear that another platform, Aura, is even better.

You can lock in our OFF discount on Aura, they won’t increase your price next year.

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You Should Get Aura If…
You Should Get ReliaShield If…
  • You want to protect your kids through their college years and beyond with a plan that allows you to add up to five adults with $1 million in theft insurance for each of them. That’s $5 million in total.
  • You want award-winning identity theft and credit monitoring, allowing you to catch threats before too much damage is done.
  • You want a full suite of additional services, including a VPN, antivirus software, safe gaming, and parental controls.
  • You want the best value in the identity protection industry.
  • You aren’t worried about protecting your children after they’re 18.
  • You want a wide breadth of services that aren’t quite as accurate as they could be.
  • You don’t need any additional services like a VPN or parental controls.

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Aura offers more accurate coverage and a full suite of additional services, including a VPN. It also has an experienced customer service team that leads the industry in threat resolution. 

Plus, with Aura, you can add up to five additional adults to your family plan, not just children. So you can cover your kids through college and beyond or cover your in-laws and your parents. And, each adult gets $1 million in identity theft protection, something no other service offers. 

ReliaShield is a great service, and I’ll explain its offerings in detail. Just know that if you want the best in identity protection for you and yours, you want Aura.

ReliaShield Review: Is It Worth Getting?

ReliaShield is worth getting if you’re okay with paying a little more for slightly less.

It offers a wide breadth of services, has an incredible customer service team, and offers better pricing than most of the industry.

Editor’s Ranking Table

Aura
ReliaShield

Overall Score

Monitoring & Alerts

  • Aura found 15 unique dark web alerts, the maximum in our test

  • Found 2 unique dark web alerts

Threat Resolution

  • White Glove support standard on all plans

  • Excellent customer service

Theft Insurance Per Adult

  • $5M Theft Insurance total on the Family plan with 5 adults

  • $1M per adult on all plans

  • $1M total Theft Insurance on all plans

Customer Support

  • Aura wins with their US-based 24/7 support

  • US-based 24/7 support

Additional Services

  • VPN

  • Password Manager

  • Antivirus

  • Parental Controls

  • VPN

  • Password Manager

  • Antivirus

  • Parental Controls

Cost

  • Aura offers an incredibly low price and highest bang for your buck

  • Offers a great price. With plans starting at $7.99 per month – very affordable

Renewal Price Increased After 1st Year?

  • No. You lock in the price for life

  • No

Promo Code


ReliaShield Identity Theft Protection Plans & Features

Monitoring & Alerts: 9/10

ReliaShield offers a wide breadth of monitoring services with its top-tier, Elite plan, including:

  • Dark web monitoring
  • Social Security number monitoring
  • Change of address monitoring
  • Court record monitoring
  • Non-credit loan monitoring
  • Three-bureau credit monitoring
  • Bank account monitoring
  • Credit application monitoring
  • Social media monitoring

Lower plan levels don’t offer quite as much. The Essentials plan cuts out all of the credit monitoring and bank account monitoring services. While the mid-level Prime plan reduces credit monitoring to one bureau (Experian) and doesn’t offer bank account monitoring.

For comprehensive protection, the Elite plan is the best choice, and it stacks up nicely against other identity protection services, including Aura. But it’s easy for a plan to look good on paper – living up to its promises is often a different story

Let’s see what happened when I put ReliaShield’s services to the test. 

Dark Web Alerts

I’ve tested many identity protection services that claim faultless dark web surveillance, only to be disappointed by what they find (or failed to find). The most accurate dark web monitoring I’ve come across is Aura’s. 

Aura populates 15 unique dark web alerts on me, far more than any other service. ReliaShield found 7. 

Seven doesn’t seem very impressive when you put it next to 15, but it’s actually pretty good. Many other services I’ve tested only find one or none! So, though ReliaShield isn’t the best at combing the dark web, it’s not terrible. And, perhaps given more time, it would have found the additional threats Aura located. 

Alert Notifications 

ReliaShield’s alert notifications are impressive. When you click on one, you’ll find a pop-up box that gives plenty of information, including why you received the alert and what to do next. 

It looks like this: 

If I’m being picky, I would say ReliaShield could add the customer care phone number where it says to contact them for help, but other than that, this is exactly what I want an alert to look like. 

On top of regular alert notifications, ReliaShield also offers Social Security number trace. This includes a map of all the places your Social Security number has been linked to a name or address. 

Having the visual representation is nice because you can quickly spot if something’s amiss. If you’ve lived in California and Texas all of your life and suddenly see dots appearing in Wyoming, you know you have a potential problem. 

Financial and Credit Monitoring

At its top tier, ReliaShield’s financial and credit monitoring services are admirable. They offer everything I want to see. Three-bureau credit monitoring, bank account monitoring, and non-credit loan account monitoring provide thorough protection for your assets and credit score. 

ReliaShield also provides investment account coverage. So, if anything is stolen from your 401(k) or another retirement savings account, they promise to reimburse you with up to $1 million. 

Public Records 

Here, ReliaShield meets all of my expectations as well. They monitor court records and alert you if anyone is using your name to commit crimes. 

They also provide non-credit loan monitoring. This means they watch for home and auto title loans taken out in your name. If you own your home or car, title monitoring is crucial to have. The last thing you want is for a thief to take a mortgage out on your home, effectively stealing one of your largest assets. 

Many identity protection services fail to include title monitoring. Aura’s one of the only other ones I’ve seen cover both home and auto titles. So, I’m impressed that ReliaShield includes it.  

Threat Resolution: 9/10

Aura
ReliaShield

Expertise

  • Aura's knowdlegeable support experts answered my call within 1-2 minutes


  • Excellent customer service


US Based Support?

  • Yes

  • Yes

Customer Hours

  • 24/7/365 Support

  • 24/7/365 Support

Concierge Resolution

  • Available on ALL plans

  • Available

Lost Wallet Protection

  • Available

  • Available

No identity protection service can stop a criminal from stealing your information. Though early detection is helpful for minimizing damage to your identity, the best protection services also offer a remarkable resolution team to help victims of identity theft.  

These teams have to be knowledgeable and compassionate. They have to be willing to walk you through the process of restoring your identity. And, they have to be ready to spend a significant amount of time and effort filling out paperwork, talking to financial institutions, and issuing credit disputes on your behalf. 

ReliaShield’s team does all of that. 

After my experience with their customer service representatives, I have no doubt that their threat resolution team rivals the best.  

Customer Service

ReliaShield is an employee-owned company. This means their U.S.-based service team is empowered to provide the best help possible. 

Maybe that’s why their customer service representatives are so great. Or, maybe they simply hire the right sort of person to do the job. Regardless, my experience calling their team was as good as it gets. 

I called on a Friday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. because I was having issues verifying my identity after signing up. It turned out that I had activated fraud alerts on another platform, ID WatchDog, which was interfering with ReliaShield’s identification process.

When I called I reached a live human being within 45 seconds! And, they solved my problem in just a few minutes! Now, that’s what I call service.

ReliaShield’s team is available 24/7/365, too. So, whenever you have an issue, you can get help. 

Concierge Resolution Service

One of the things that drew me to ReliaShield was their 100 percent recovery rate. They’re always able to restore the identities and credit histories of victims using their services. 

My guess is ReliaShield hasn’t had many victims they’ve had to help. They’re a smaller company and the odds are probably in their favor. 

Still, a 100 percent success rate is impressive! And, given my experience with their service team, I have no reason to doubt that they do everything they can to help their customers. 

According to their terms of service, their resolution services include:

  • Ensuring you’re not liable for fraudulent financial transactions.
  • Ensuring your credit is restored to its former state. 
  • Reimbursement of up to $1 million in stolen funds and benefits through their theft insurance policy. 

Other than the $1 million total in reimbursement, this is right in line with Aura, and that’s saying something. Aura remains my top pick because it offers $1 million per adult and features a more experienced threat resolution team with an average of seven years of industry experience. Still, ReliaShield is impressive. 

Wallet Protection 

ReliaShield meets the industry standard for wallet protection services. If you lose your wallet, they promise to help you cancel and reorder your bank cards, ID cards, health insurance cards, and your Social Security card, if needed. 

Theft Insurance: 7/10

Aura
ReliaShield

Theft Insurance Score

Theft Insurance 

  • Up to $5M Theft Insurance on the family plan  ($1M per adult)

  • $1M Theft Insurance per Adult on Individual & Couple plans

  • Maximum $1M Theft Insurance total on all plans

ReliaShield touts $1 million in stolen funds and expense reimbursement. This is actually their theft insurance policy. It’s underwritten by American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida and has a similar breakdown to most other identity protection services’ policies. 

Here’s what it includes: 

  • Reimbursement for lost wages, so you can take off work to fix records of your identity.
  • Reimbursement of lost and stolen funds from unauthorized electronic fund transfers.
  • Reimbursement for losses from fraud, embezzlement, forgery, data breaches, and direct theft of property related to your identity (like your checkbook).
  • Reimbursement for costs incurred when re-filing applications, notarizing affidavits, postage, and necessary travel.
  • Reimbursement for child or elderly care if needed.
  • Reimbursement for attorney fees up to $125 per hour. 

It’s not a bad policy by any means, and I love how transparent ReliaShield is about its inclusions. However, it’s not amazing. 

If you have a family plan with ReliaShield, you get the same $1 million in coverage. Even if you’re protecting three kids and your spouse, the amount of theft insurance stays the same. 

That’s one reason Aura is a better choice for families. Aura offers $1 million per adult, and you can have up to five adults on one plan. So, you get up to $5 million in insurance coverage. 

Family Plans: 7/10 

If you have a family that you want to protect, ReliaShield isn’t the worst pick, but it’s also not the best. 

ReliaShield family plans have some benefits – namely that you can include up to ten children at no additional cost, but those kids have to be under 18. 

With Aura, that’s not the case. 

Aura allows you to include your college-age or adult children as well as in-laws, parents, and any other adult within your family unit. And, though the family plan cost doesn’t change as you add adults on, the insurance coverage does. As I mentioned above, Aura offers $1 million in coverage per adult

Aura also gives families extra tools to help protect their children, like parental controls. 

So, if you’re trying to protect more than you and your spouse, you should be looking at Aura, not ReliaShield. 

Ease of Use: 8/10

I found ReliaShield to be very easy to use. You can navigate to alerts and different service aspects without too many clicks, and everything loads decently fast. It’s just that their user interface looks dated.

I did have an issue during signup. Their passive identification verification didn’t work for me. But, as I’ve said, their customer service team is amazing and was able to resolve things fast. 

So, the only complaint I have is that ReliaShield doesn’t allow you to change or cancel service from your profile. You have to call them instead. 

That’s a warning sign for me. 

Sometimes companies that make you call them to cancel service usually try to convince you to stay. Sometimes they get a little aggressive about it, and the conversation is almost never pleasant. 

However, ReliaShield didn’t try any heavy sales tactics to push me to keep my plan. I was surprised.

Additional Services: 0/10

Additional Services

  • VPN

  • Password Manager

  • Antivirus

  • Parental Controls

  • VPN

  • Password Manager

  • Antivirus

  • Parental Controls

ReliaShield doesn’t offer much in the way of additional services. It doesn’t include a VPN, antivirus software, password manager, credit simulator, or parental controls. 

Those services are nice to have as they can contribute to your overall identity protection health. So far, only Aura (my preferred platform)  includes all these additional services. Plus, Aura includes safe gaming features that help parents monitor this children’s gaming platform use by alerting them to cyberbullying, harassment, and racism. 

However, if you really want ReliaShield, I wouldn’t say the lack of additional services should be a dealbreaker either. 

ReliaShield Cost: 8/10

Aura

Promo Code

Individual Plan Cost

  • $9/month

Aura only offers one plan but offers the same benefits as Identity Guard's Ultra plan

  • $7.99/month RELIASHIELD ESSENTIAL

  • $14.99/month RELIASHIELD PRIME

  • $21.99/month RELIASHIELD ELITE

Couple Plan Cost

  • $17/month 

  • Covers 2 Adults

  • No Couples plan

Family Plan Cost

  • $25/month

  • Covers 5 adults & unlimited kids

Aura only offers one plan but offers the same benefits as Identity Guard's Ultra plan

  • $14.99/month RELIASHIELD ESSENTIAL

  • $24.99/month RELIASHIELD PRIME

  • $34.99/month RELIASHIELD ELITE

Renewal Price Increased After 1st Year?

  • No. You lock in the price for life

  • No

Promo Code


Compared to other top performers in the identity protection world, ReliaShield offers a great price. With plans starting at $7.99 per month – very affordable. 

Of course, you’ll want the Elite plan if you want truly comprehensive coverage. That one comes out to $21.99 per month, which starts to feel a little steep – especially when you put it next to Aura. 

Aura offers the same full coverage you’d get with the Elite plan at a better price (especially when you use our discount code).  

Plus, Aura comes with more family insurance coverage, more additional features, and more accurate monitoring. So, if you want the best value in the industry, you want Aura, not ReliaShield. 

FAQs

Is ReliaShield worth it? 

ReliaShield is worth it for some people. They offer comprehensive monitoring at a great price compared to most other identity protection services. 

Of course, there’s still one better – Aura offers more services at an even better price point. So, if you’re looking for great value, Aura is what you should pick. 

Is ReliaShield legitimate? 

Yes, ReliaShield is a legitimate company. They’re headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, and owned by the insurance agency ReliaQuote. ReliaQuote’s parent company is Zander Insurance

Does ReliaShield offer a free trial? 

No, ReliaShield does not offer a free trial. 

Does ReliaShield offer a discount or coupon code? 

No, ReliaShield does not offer a discount or coupon code. 

Final Verdict: 8/10

I enjoyed testing ReliaShield. Their services were comprehensive, the interface was easy to use, and their customer service team was helpful. 

If I hadn’t already experienced Aura, I might have given them a 10/10 – but I have tested Aura. 

And, Aura is decidedly better. 

Aura offers more accurate coverage, more flexible family plans, and more additional services. Better yet, with our discount code, you can lock in a better price for life. 

So, ReliaShield might be good enough for some, but if you want the best identity protection available, you want Aura.

Read More:

Citations:

1. https://www.bbb.org/us/tn/nashville/profile/identity-theft-protection/reliashield-0573-37184898/accreditation-information

2. https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/5ae6c25b-d27a-4663-9e42-007178ddd609/downloads/reliashield%20info.pdf?ver=1617820395766