LANSING, MI -- There is a possibility that some customers of Michigan's largest insurance company may have been caught up in a national data hack affecting 80 million people, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan said today.

BCBSM is affiliated with Anthem, the national health insurance company that was hacked for personal data including names and social security numbers.

BCBSM VP of Communications Andy Hetzel said that while Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Anthem are separate companies, they have an affiliation. It's this connection that allows somebody with BCBSM insurance to go to a hospital if they get sick in a state in Anthem's territory.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Logo.

"We use each other's networks to comprise a national network," Hetzel said.

Because of this affiliation, there is a chance that data from BCBSM customers has been compromised.

"We believe there's a strong possibility, and we are taking this incident very seriously," Hetzel said.

So seriously that the company is treating this incident as if one of their own systems had come under cyber attack. The highest level of BCBSM management has been in discussions with Anthem and Blue Cross Blue Shield about the incident, and they are undertaking an investigation.

Hetzel didn't speculate on which customers specifically might be affected, but did say customer data could have ended up in Anthem systems several ways.

Sometimes large Michigan-based employers will insure their employees nationwide through BCBSM, so employees will have a BCBSM card but have their claims reimbursed by Anthem. In other instances, a Michigander with BCBSM insurance may have had a medical issue while traveling in one of the states powered by an Anthem partnership.

However, it's not known for sure if customers in either of those scenarios would have been caught up in the hack, or if it's more likely customers in these scenarios would have compromised data.

In 14 states, Anthem is the Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee. Those are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin

Here in Michigan, "We don't know enough facts right now to communicate whether or not anyone's data was compromised," Hetzel said.

He urged BCBSM customers not to panic, but to use common sense in noting any unusual credit report activity and being wary of anybody asking for personal information.

"We take the privacy and security of our members' information very seriously. We have measures in place to prevent this type of unauth access and we are working all the time to identify the methods that hackers used to get into complex systems with safeguards like ours. This incident serves again as a reminder that we need to be ever-vigilant to make sure that we make every effort to protect our members' information," Hetzel said.

BCBSM plans to keep its customers updated for now on its blog.

Anthem has launched the website anthemfacts.com, and has urged customers to call 1-877-263-7995 if they have questions related to the incident.

Emily Lawler is a Capitol/Lansing business reporter for MLive. You can reach her at elawler@mlive.com, subscribe to her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter: @emilyjanelawler.