Insurance agents and brokers are experiencing a major shift in what their customers and clients have come to expect.

Insurers increasingly are dropping agents' commissions to discourage the sale of the Affordable Care Act plans they're losing the most money on, especially when the consumers are more likely to be sick, according to health care industry officials and experts.

The valuation of once high-flying technology leader Zenefits is less than $2 billion now, or 65 percent less than its May 2015 high point, following another write down by mutual fund giant Fidelity Investments.

It wasn’t until a doctor ordered medical tests for Adriana Vitale that she discovered her Covered California coverage had disappeared. “I was shocked. I was crying. I was depressed,” said Vitale, 61, of Downey.

People newly insured under the Affordable Care Act were sicker, used more medical care and had higher medical costs than those who already had coverage, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association said Tuesday in a new study of its policyholders.

An executive director of a health insurance exchange in Nevada said that the state-based marketplace has helped the region save as much as a million dollars in 2015.