What Is Identity Theft?
Identity theft is a serious and growing crime that can significantly affect you if you’re a victim. When someone uses your personal information without your permission, it’s considered identity theft. The types of information that are commonly stolen include:
- Names
- Addresses
- Credit card numbers
- Bank account numbers
- Social Security numbers
- Medical insurance information
Identity theft can happen to anyone and the negative consequences can be crippling. What would you do if:
- Someone takes out a car loan using your name and information? The bill for the car loan is sent to their address, but they don’t pay it, causing your credit score to go down. You may not know that someone took out a loan in your name, but the lender believes you’re the one not paying.
- You discover that your identity has been stolen and someone has taken credit cards our in your name?
- Someone uses your personal information to take your tax refund?
- Someone creates a new passport with your personal information and uses it to travel or for fraudulent activity?
What Is the Best Fraud Expense Coverage?
The Hartford offers different identity theft coverages for a number of situations. Whether you’re a business owner or homeowner, we understand the risks when it comes to identity theft and we’re here to help protect you.
With Identity Fraud Expense coverage, you can be compensated up to certain limits for your out-of-pocket expenses to recover from fraud or identity theft.
If you’re a business owner, you can add data breach insurance coverage to your
general liability or
Business Owner’s Policy. We offer two types of this data breach coverage. Our first type is a first party coverage called data breach response expenses and provides coverage for the business owner’s expenses. This covers:
- Notification expenses
- Crisis management expenses
- Credit monitoring services
- Good faith advertising
- Legal or forensic services
As a business owner, you can add optional business income and extra expenses coverage to help cover any loss of income due to a data breach. You can also add optional extortion threat coverage.
Our second type is data breach defense and liability coverage, which helps provide coverage for third party civil awards, settlements and judgments resulting from a data breach claim.
Whether you’re a homeowner or business owner, when it comes to identity theft protection, there’s no one-solution-fits-all option. Stolen identity can happen in many different ways, but at The Hartford, we offer different coverages to keep you protected through them all.
Other Coverages Offered by The Hartford
Identify fraud expense coverage is just one of the great coverages that you can choose from to add to your homeowners insurance. Other popular coverages include:
- “New for Old” Protection‡‡ – We’ll help provide the actual cost to replace your possessions with new ones if they’re destroyed by a covered loss.
- Personal Injury Liability Coverage – If there’s a libel or slander claim, we’ll help cover potential damages.
- Reimbursement for Replacing Locks – This coverage pays up to $500 with a $100 deductible if you have to replace your locks or if a key is lost or stolen.
- Disappearing Property Deductible‡‡ – Enabling you to reduce your deductible for every three years you go without having an insurance loss at your home or condo. Deductible reduction does not apply to Mine Subsidence and Equipment Breakdown coverage.
- Equipment Breakdown Coverage – If your electronics or appliances break down from normal use, this coverage can help cover the cost to fix or replace them.
The Hartford offers even more unique coverages to help homeowners with specific needs.
Green Rebuilding coverage allows your policy limits to increase by 10% when you use green, environmentally-friendly materials or processes to repair and rebuild after a covered loss.
Water Backup and Sump Pump Overflow coverage helps protect water backup through sewers, drains or sump pump failure that is not caused by flood or surface water.
Scheduled Personal Property coverage covers 100% of the insured value of selected high value items in your home if they’re damaged or destroyed in a covered loss.
Why Identity Theft Insurance Is Important
If you become a victim of identity theft, it can wreak havoc on your personal life or seriously affect your business. Data breaches happen often and can affect your business reputation if your customers’ information is stolen in a data breach.
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There are so many negative results that can come with identity theft including credit scores plummeting. In some cases, your business may be forced to close because you suffered a data breach and had to pay out of pocket, causing you to lose customers. It can take several months to recover from an identity theft incident.
The Hartford’s
Homeowners Insurance can help you and your family recover expenses incurred from identity theft and fraud. We offer additional services to help you safely manage your personal information and provide you with resources if you become a victim of identity theft.
Responding to and recovering from identity theft can be costly. With identity fraud expense coverage, you can get the financial peace of mind you need, knowing that The Hartford has your back.
Be sure you have the right coverage to keep you protected from fraud. Get an
online quote for a homeowners insurance policy today and tailor it to your family’s unique needs. If you have questions, our specialists at The Hartford are here to help. Call us at
888-413-8970 and we’ll help you pick the right coverages for your homeowners insurance policy.