Health minister Edith Schippers wants insurance companies to offer fewer different policies to patients to improve transparency for consumers and has asked the national health council to monitor the situation.

The current plethora of polices makes it difficult for patients to see the wood for the trees, the minister is quoted as saying by news agency ANP.

The health insurance market in the Netherlands is 90% controlled by four health insurance companies but they operate dozens of different brands.

In addition, insurers must stop offering basic policies with supplementary policies as a complete package, she said. This is because people should be able to take out supplementary insurance with another company if they think the deal is better.