AlarmWATCH partners with Ocenture for identity theft protection bundle

HUNT VALLEY, Md.—AlarmWATCH, a central station based here, has a new partnership that it says will allow dealers to offer more protection than they've traditionally been able.

AlarmWATCH in August announced a partnership with identity theft solutions company Ocenture to bundle the company's ID theft protection service IdentaSafe with physical security solution packages.

AlarmWATCH VP of Sales and Marketing Guy Kline said the bundled offering can be used as a premium service or as a no- or low-cost differentiator.

"With our network of dealers approaching 1,000 nationwide, they're always looking for another value to add their prospective end users," Kline told Security Systems News. "They're already talking about monitoring and video and cellular and Total Connect and all the other fun things our industry offers end users now. This is a natural progression—while we're protecting your assets, Mr. & Mrs. Prospect, here's one other thing we can offer you: Personal protection, whether you're home or not."

IdentaSafe will detect, prevent and correct any threat or compromise to a person's identity, such as hacking into a home or business computer. The program includes identity restoration services, an insurance benefit to offset direct costs of restoration, identity monitoring with comprehensive reports and a robust package of security software, according to an AlarmWATCH release. Dealers can tailor the service to meet any commercial or residential need while increasing RMR opportunities

Ocenture founder and CEO Fraser Burns said customers have three main concerns.

"One is protecting their families from physical harm; they're interested in protecting their physical assets they've accumulated; and the third is that they're interested in protecting their future buying-power," Burns said. "We're seeing a merger of physical property protection with intangible lifestyle protection and we feel this is a trend that is going to continue … We feel the market is currently about a $3 billion industry and we expect it to grow by about 10-12 percent growth year-over-year for the next four years."

In 2009 SSN reported on Security Networks' partnership with identity theft solutions provider InfoArmor, and just last week reported on Protection 1's similar partnership with LifeLock.