Bankruptcy filings increase nationally, locally

Bankruptcies filings increased slightly in the year ending Dec. 31, 2019, continuing an uphill trend of such filings after nearly a decade of annual decline, the federal courts reported.

In all, annual filings in U.S. bankruptcy courts increased 0.2% during the last statistical year, totaling 774,940, compared to 773,418  in December 2018. However, those filings are still 51% lower than the peak reached a decade ago during the aftermath of the Great Recession, the U.S. Courts reported.

While one Indiana federal court kept in step with that national trend, the other far surpassed it in the number of filings.

Indiana’s Southern District saw an increase of filings by 0.2% for the year ending Dec. 31, 2019, mirroring the national percentage for the same period. The district saw a slight increase to 14,236 total filings for all chapters, compared to 14,206 in 2018.

However, the Northern District of Indiana saw an increase of 1.8% from the previous year with 9,096 filings in 2019. That’s an additional 161 filings compared to the previous year’s total of 8,935.

Several hundred more businesses filed for bankruptcy nationwide in 2019 than did in 2018, the U.S. Courts report, with 22,780 businesses filing during the 12-month period ending Dec. 31, 2019. Just 22,232 business filed the year before.

In the Indiana Southern District, 228 businesses filed for bankruptcy in 2019 compared to 203 in Dec. 31, 2018. During the same time, the Northern District saw just two more companies file for bankruptcy in 2019 than did in 2018, with 90 companies compared to 88.