Bad news for brokers.

Kaiser Health News reports that three of thelargest insurance companies in the country, upset with peoplesigning up for their individual marketplace plans outside of thedesignated open enrollment periods, have informed brokers that theywill not pay them commissions for post-deadline customers.

Apparently Anthem, Aetna, and Cigna all independently took the sameaction in recent days, reports Kaiser.

Similarly, Cigna and Humana are no longer payingcommissions on more expensive “gold” level plans in the PPACAmarketplace, hoping instead to encourage enrollment in cheaper,higher-deductible plans at the “silver” or “bronze” level.

The action comes amidst complaints from insurers that “specialenrollment periods” granted to customers for a variety of reasons,such as a job loss or a move, have been abused.

Insurers allege that customers havebeen using such periods as excuses to sign up when they are sick orplanning to use medical services.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services hasconceded that there has been some abuse, and haseliminated a number of special enrollment periods and pledged tomore carefully vet applications for special enrollment in thefuture.

But for insurers, the easier way to deal with the problem may beto just deter special enrollment customers from their plans.

Although they are not allowed to bar them, they can take acrucial incentive away from brokers to push such customers in theirdirection.

It’s not clear for now how the government will respond to thepractice.

By no means are all PPACA plans purchased through brokers, but abig portion have been. A report from the Kaiser Health Foundationfound that 44 percent of PPACA plans in Kentucky, which experiencedthe largest drop in uninsured rate, were bought throughbrokers.

For now, the largest nonprofit PPACA insurer, Kaiser Permanente,has not changed its commission policies.