Connect for Health Colorado, the state’s health insurance exchange, is scrambling to fix yet another problem with its website.

Up to 3,615 Colorado policyholders who were eligible for automatic renewals of their health insurance plans through the exchange may have inadvertently ended their existing coverage by merely browsing other plan choices.

In recent weeks, consumers began hearing from their insurance carriers that they’re uninsured.

Exchange officials on Wednesday said a design flaw of the website misled some of the 3,615 into opting out of their coverage while assuming they were re-enrolled. They accidentally lopped themselves off insurance rolls by window-shopping other plans.

Of about 74,000 policies that were eligible for automatic renewal, 3,615 were not renewed, said Connect for Health spokesman Curtis Hubbard.

The flaw in the website was first reported by 9News.

Consumers who logged onto their exchange accounts were given three options, he said. They could continue with coverage, shop for a new plan or elect not to renew coverage.

If consumers opted to browse information about other plans but never selected one, they nevertheless were unenrolled from their existing plan — not renewed.

Exchange officials were aware of the feature, but did not foresee the extent of the problem it would create for customers, Hubbard said.

Consumers could compare different health plans on the website without purchasing one at another spot on the website, as long as they weren’t signed into their accounts.

“It wasn’t clear to people,” Hubbard said.

Connect for Health sent out notices to customers Dec. 14 stating, “If you’re a renewing customer, and you’ve been shopping for plans, and have placed a plan in your shopping cart, make sure you finish the process and submit your enrollment.”

That really didn’t clear things up, Hubbard said.

A red-letter warning was added to the website in December to help consumers understand that looking at other plans would cancel auto-renewal.

The exchange started hearing from the unhappily unenrolled in the last week or so, he said, and officials don’t know exactly how many complaints have been received on that issue alone.

Ben Price, director of the Colorado Association of Health Plans, said insurance carriers, which also have been hearing from customers, are eager to work with the exchange to reach out to everyone affected.

“We do have a fix for this,” Price said. “We can re-enroll all these people back to Jan. 1.”

A number of technical problems with the exchange website have frustrated consumers.

As of Jan. 15, exchange CEO Gary Drews reported that there were about 1,900 outstanding reports of enrollment problems caused by about two dozen technical glitches. That was down from as many as 4,800 complaints logged at one point.

Exchange officials said most of the technical issues were resolved in December.

The Connect for Health Colorado board of directors agreed earlier this month to spend an additional $322,000 through the end of February to try to sign up applicants stalled in the exchange’s online enrollment system.

One would-be purchaser, Paulette Leonard, said she eventually got scared away from the exchange and purchased elsewhere, without benefit of tax credits.

“Navigating that website was one minefield after another — without every really knowing if you blew up enrollment or not,” Leonard said. “I gave up.”

Whatever the number of unintentionally uninsured consumers turns out to be, Hubbard said, the exchange will work with every customer to ensure they get timely coverage.

“This was our first re-enrollment period,” Hubbard said. “We’re constantly learning how to improve our service.”

Electa Draper: 303-954-1276, edraper@denverpost.com or twitter.com/electadraper