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A "lockbox" housing personal information on approximately 130,000 Aetna health insurance members, including 19,000 Ohioans, was stolen Oct. 26 when thieves broke into an office building occupied by an Aetna vendor, Aetna officials said Tuesday.

The lockbox, housed by Naperville, Ill.-based Concentra Preferred Systems, contained computer back-up tapes of medical claim data for Aetna and several other Concentra health plan clients, Aetna spokeswoman Cynthia Michener said.

But because stolen items also included cash, DVD players and other "pawnable items," authorities believe the burglary was the work of common thieves, not sophisticated crooks looking to steal identities.

"We believe the likelihood of anyone successfully accessing or compromising the data to be low," Michener said.

Citing confidentiality concerns, Concentra officials declined to release the names of other health plans involved. But according to its Web site, the company provides services to "virtually all of the largest health insurance carriers and HMOs" in the United States.

In a press release, the company said accessing the data would be difficult because it would require a complex combination of commercial equipment and special software packages that are in unlabeled formats. "These tapes cannot be used on a standard PC," the release stated.

Aetna, which serves approximately 29.8 million people nationwide, is notifying members and providers potentially affected by the theft and offering them free credit monitoring services for one year.

For more, visit aetna.com/news/kits/vendor.html.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7408 or agottschlich@DaytonDaily

News.com.

Identity theft a national concern

Health insurance giant Aetna believes the potential for identity theft is small in the case involving medical claim records that were stolen from a vendor's office in October.

Identity theft remains a growing concern in the United States, however, costing businesses $50 billion a year, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Companies reporting data breaches over the past two years include LexisNexis Group, which revealed that criminals may have breached computer files containing the personal information of 310,000 people since January 2003. Also, Georgia-based data broker ChoicePoint Inc. disclosed a security breach last year involving 145,000 Americans.

In May, President Bush signed an executive order creating the nation's first Identity Theft Task Force. The goals of the Task Force are to develop a strategic plan to better prevent identity theft, coordinate prosecution and ensure recovery for victims.

For questions about identity theft or to report identity theft, call the FTC at (877) ID-THEFT or visit http://ftc.gov/idtheft.