If your Apple ID, which is probably also your iCloud account, is hacked, there are a number of bad consequences. First, any data in your iCloud account becomes accessible to the hacker. Do not store any sensitive data in the cloud unless you have it encrypted somehow.
Further, as has already been pointed out, access to your Apple ID gives the hacker the ability to locate your phone on a map, remotely erase the phone or lock the phone, if you have Find My iPhone turned on on the phone. Note that in iOS 7, a locked phone cannot be used at all in the future without access to the Apple ID used to lock it. This is important.
The biggest danger is that the hacker could take control of your Apple ID away from you by changing the password, rescue e-mail address and security questions. If that were to happen, you might be unable to regain control of the Apple ID, and if your phone were locked, you might never be able to unlock it. That is very, very bad, but can be prevented by enabling two-factor authentication on your Apple ID. This won't necessarily prevent your iCloud account from getting hacked, since this is not used for iCloud logins, but it will prevent a hacker from being able to modify the Apple ID in any way.