Most of what gets repeated online about credit cards and identity theft is out of date. The free, card-issuer-backed identity theft insurance that used to come standard on Visa Signature and Visa Infinite cards, the kind with a $1,000,000 headline number, is gone from the current benefits paperwork for every major card TheRewardsCoach covers. What replaced it is a mix of a free but easy-to-miss enrollment benefit, a paid Amex add-on, and one genuinely free service anyone can use.
What the current benefits guides actually say
Before writing this, we read the source documents directly instead of trusting the summary pages that get copied from site to site. Two things stood out.
Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Sapphire Reserve’s current Guide to Benefits (effective October 1, 2024, the version live today) lists thirteen benefit sections: auto rental coverage, baggage delay insurance, emergency evacuation, emergency medical and dental, extended warranty protection, lost luggage reimbursement, purchase protection, return protection, roadside assistance, travel accident insurance, travel and emergency assistance, trip cancellation and interruption insurance, and trip delay reimbursement. Identity theft does not appear once.
Capital One’s Visa Signature Guide to Benefits, which covers the Venture X (effective December 17, 2024), lists eight sections: extended warranty protection, purchase security, concierge, travel and emergency assistance, roadside dispatch, auto rental collision damage waiver, lost luggage reimbursement, and worldwide automatic travel accident insurance. Same result. No identity theft benefit.
Amex Platinum’s own official benefits page is no different. Its headline list runs through the lounge collection, Uber Cash, the Resy credit, the hotel credit, the airline fee credit, CLEAR+, Walmart+, and lululemon. Identity protection does not make the list.
| Card | Network | Free ID theft insurance in the current Guide to Benefits? |
|---|---|---|
| Chase Sapphire Preferred | Visa Signature | No |
| Chase Sapphire Reserve | Visa Infinite | No |
| Capital One Venture X | Visa Signature/Infinite | No |
| Amex Platinum | American Express | No |
Rates and terms verified as of 2026-09-12 against the issuers’ own current documents, not secondary aggregator summaries.
The free benefit that still exists, but you have to turn it on
Here is the part that explains why so many sites still describe free ID theft coverage as if it were automatic: it used to be, and a version of it is still real, just not automatic anymore. Visa’s ID Navigator Powered by NortonLifeLock is a free benefit for Visa Signature, Visa Infinite, and Visa Traditional cardholders, which covers the Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, and Venture X. It includes dark web monitoring, one-bureau credit monitoring alerts, Stolen Wallet Assist, and Restoration Assist if your identity is actually compromised.
Restoration Assist is the part that matters if something actually goes wrong: a caseworker helps you place fraud alerts, dispute fraudulent accounts with the bureaus, and work through the paperwork of closing accounts opened in your name. It is a service, not a check. If you want money back for the hours you spent or the fees you paid to fix it, that is what the paid option below covers, not this one.
The catch with ID Navigator is enrollment. This benefit does not show up in either Chase’s or Capital One’s own Guide to Benefits, because Visa administers it separately from the issuer’s insurance-backed benefits. Nothing activates it automatically when you open the card. You have to go to cardbenefitidprotect.com, confirm your card is eligible, and register with NortonLifeLock directly. Skip that step and you have a benefit on paper that does nothing for you.
Amex Platinum does not qualify for ID Navigator. It runs on the American Express network, not Visa, so this specific fix does not apply to that card.
What Amex offers instead: a real phone line, and a paid upgrade
Amex Business Platinum carries a complimentary 24/7 phone line for cardmembers who suspect they are victims of identity theft (1-800-297-7672), confirmed directly in Amex’s own benefit documentation. It is support and guidance, not insurance. It will not reimburse a dollar of expense, and we could not confirm whether the same line extends to the consumer Platinum or Gold cards, so do not assume it does.
The closer replacement for the old $1,000,000 language is CreditSecure, an Amex-run add-on open to any American Express cardmember regardless of which card they hold. It costs $19.99 a month (new signups get the first 30 days for $1, and it auto-renews onto the full price unless cancelled), and it includes three-bureau credit monitoring, dark web scanning, and up to $1,000,000 in identity theft insurance for out-of-pocket restoration expenses. That $1,000,000 figure is the same number that used to be a free perk on premium Visa cards. Now it is a subscription.
The one option that is genuinely free with no catch
Capital One’s CreditWise is free monitoring open to anyone with a valid Social Security number, whether or not you have ever held a Capital One card. It tracks your Experian and TransUnion reports, scans the dark web for your information, and alerts you to new accounts or hard inquiries. It is not identity theft insurance, so it will not reimburse restoration costs the way CreditSecure does, but it costs nothing and needs no card relationship to use.
Bottom Line
If you carry a Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, or Venture X, the single move worth making today is enrolling in ID Navigator at cardbenefitidprotect.com. It is free and most cardholders never activate it. If you carry an Amex and want insurance-backed coverage rather than a support line, that now means paying for CreditSecure, not assuming your card already includes it.
FAQ
Q: Did my card really used to include free identity theft insurance?
A: If you hold a Visa Signature or Visa Infinite card issued more than a few years ago, quite possibly. That benefit has since been removed from the issuer-underwritten Guide to Benefits for both Chase and Capital One’s current cards.
Q: Is ID Navigator the same $1,000,000 insurance my old card used to advertise?
A: No. ID Navigator is monitoring and restoration assistance, not an insurance reimbursement product. The $1,000,000 insurance figure now lives inside Amex’s paid CreditSecure subscription, not any free Visa benefit.
Q: Does enrolling in ID Navigator cost anything?
A: No, it is free for eligible Visa Signature, Visa Infinite, and Visa Traditional cardholders. You do have to register at cardbenefitidprotect.com yourself; it is not automatic.
Q: I don’t want to pay for CreditSecure. What’s my free option?
A: Capital One’s CreditWise, which is free to anyone regardless of card ownership, or Visa’s ID Navigator if your card qualifies.
Q: Does the Amex Platinum have any identity theft benefit at all?
A: Not among its listed complimentary benefits as of this writing. Amex Business Platinum has a confirmed 24/7 identity theft assistance phone line, but that is advisory only, not insurance, and we could not confirm it extends to the consumer Platinum card.
Q: My card statement mentions a “Guide to Benefits.” Should I check mine directly?
A: Yes. Issuers update these documents without much fanfare, and the version that applies to you is whichever one is currently in effect, not whatever an older blog post described. Chase and Capital One both host theirs at chasecardbenefits.com and the issuer’s own site; check the effective date printed on the first page before trusting anything in it.