A European windstorm series in February has caused insurance property losses of €3.29 billion ($4.87 billion) from 1.8 million individual insurance claims, based on an initial estimate, Zurich-based catastrophe data company Perils says.

Three storms named Ylenia, Zeynep and Antonia struck Britain and continental Europe from February 16-21, creating the largest European windstorm loss since Kyrill in 2007.

Strong winds caused major disruption and extensive damage to insured properties and Perils says the “huge number” of claims were mostly for non-structural damage with moderate average claim sizes.

The majority of losses occurred in Germany, followed by the Benelux states, the UK and France. Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Poland and the Czech Republic were also affected.

The cluster of windstorms was driven by a strong jet stream which “acted as a conveyor belt” for low-pressure systems from the North Atlantic across the British Isles and on into Europe, Perils says.

“This clustering phenomena is not uncommon for European extratropical cyclones but makes it difficult to precisely allocate insurance claims to a specific storm given that the three events occurred within a short space of time and impacted similar areas,” it said.

Perils has reported the losses from the European windstorm series as a single insurance event as it says event definition clauses for reinsurance purposes are not homogenous in Europe and can include meteorological conditions plus loss aggregation periods ranging from 72-to-168 hours.

An updated estimate will be published in May.