Reports prepared by the FTC have shown the crippling effects of identity fraud. Their Polls show that identity theft is the fastest growing crime in North America and that the number of identity theft victims continues to increase each year. Thus, the Federal Trade Commission advises you to get an identity protection program or use a service.

For example, there is an identity theft protection service, Lifelock, that guarantees to protect your credit. Apart from all the benefits that Life Lock offers such as placing and renewing fraud alerts, Walletlock, eRecon, True Address, reducing junk mail, free credit reports, etc., it also has a $1 Million Total Service Guarantee available for its clients. Read all about LifeLock’s identity protection service by visiting this Lifelock Review, this article is about their service guarantee.

Lifelock’s policy is straight forward, but somewhat limited. They pay up to one million dollars in order to deal with the failure or defect of the identity protection plan. This one million dollars is given per member, per lifetime for all the occurrences in the total amount no matter the circumstances. Their guarantee doesn’t cover everything. The service guarantee does not reimburse special, incidental, indirect or consequential damages like lost wages, profits, opportunities, etc. Lifelock’s service guarantee is the backbone of their identity theft protection service and can be seen in the Terms and Conditions Agreement which is at Lifelock.com.

There are different situations when the guarantee is applicable. If you are a member and a criminal accesses your personal information to commit identity theft, the company will hire experts to restore your good name and will pay for all expenses incurred and any financial loss. Users of Lifelock must be upfront and truthful and tell them that their private information was used to commit identity fraud within 30 days of finding out.

Lifelock will be responsible for repairing all damage caused by failure or defect of their service. However, they will arrange and cover the wages of lawyers and investigators etc. who have official permission to work in the jurisdiction of the particular place where the issue resides. In case the compensation required is over $1,000,000, Lifelock will only honor $1 million. If after an investigation by LifeLock they find out that your private information was used without authorization to commit an illegal act, the company will perform as described in the terms and conditions agreement. However, if LifeLock, notices intentionally misrepresented damages or an attempt to deceive in which the member was involved, he or she will have to pay back upon demand all fees Lifelock has paid for the legal defense, including any other cost the company sustained.

To better understand Lifelocks total service guarantee consult a lawyer as this is not legal advice nor a recommendation for or against Lifelock’s service guarantee. An identity protection service needs to have a good guarantee so I attempted to share my understanding of it for you so you could make an informed decision.