An extratropical cyclone which affected the British Isles and north-west Europe a year ago caused insurance losses of €350 million ($544.98 million), Zurich catastrophe data company Perils says in a final estimate.

The storm Victoria, also known as Dennis, struck in mid February last year.

The majority of insurance losses from Victoria occurred in the UK, France, Belgium and Germany.

In addition to damage caused by strong winds, Victoria also brought heavy rainfall which aggravated ongoing floods in the UK, triggered by heavy precipitation brought by cyclone Sabine just a week earlier.

Victoria affected a much smaller area of the British Isles and western Europe and losses were around five times lower than from Sabine, though it still added to a considerable weather-related claims toll that month.

Victoria was the thirteenth notable storm of a very active 2019/20 European windstorm season, contrasting with the current benign season which so far has had only two notable events: windstorms Hermine in December and Goran in January.

No European windstorm losses have yet matched Victoria, which is unusual as Perils says that based on the last 42 years of European windstorm loss history, an industry loss of this size can be expected to be reached or exceeded at least once a year on average.

An update of the resulting flood industry loss will be separately reported by Perils .