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Bestiary / The Personal Insolvency History
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We describe a pattern seen in UK public-register data. We do not accuse any specific person or company. A match on the data means the pattern may apply, you decide what to do with that information. How our data works →

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The Personal Insolvency History archetype illustration
The RecoupIQ Bestiary · individual_insolvency · model #19
● Building

The Personal Insolvency History

Was personally bankrupted, IVA'd, or DRO'd in the last six years. Now operating Ltd companies again. The same financial behaviour that crashed him personally is one quarter into crashing the company too.

£72kvia repeated capital mistakes
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Honest note

This archetype is in the build queue, not yet running. The Individual Insolvency Register fuzzy-match is designed but the scorer is not yet running. Free scans don't include this archetype yet.

You are the target

He went through personal bankruptcy four years ago and his discharge cleaned the record from his credit file but not from the public Individual Insolvency Register. He's running a Ltd company now because the corporate veil offers him another shot, and the same patterns that crashed him personally (optimistic projections, capital extraction, late payments) are statistically about to crash the company. You're the supplier extending him 30-day terms while not knowing.

The Personal Insolvency History · the loss

£72k via repeated capital mistakes.

One bad customer at a time, this is how UK SMEs go from cashflow-tight to cashflow-broken in a single quarter.

How he acts

The Individual Insolvency Register is public, and free, but almost nobody runs it during a B2B due-diligence pass. He went through a personal IVA in 2021. Or a personal bankruptcy that's still on the official record. Or a Debt Relief Order. The financial behaviour that triggered the personal collapse, over-borrowing, missed payments, optimistic projections, is now operating inside a Ltd structure where the consequences fall on creditors instead of him.

Personal insolvency history is one of the strongest leading indicators of company insolvency for SME directors. Multiple academic studies (UK and US) put the relative risk at 4-7× sector baseline. Yet it's almost never surfaced in commercial credit checks because the data lives in the Insolvency Service's individual register, not Companies House.

Where our information comes from

All public sources. All checkable. We don’t guess and we don’t use private opinion, only data you can verify yourself.

  • 01
    Individual Insolvency Register
    Free public Insolvency Service register of every individual currently in IVA / bankruptcy / DRO and recently-discharged events.
  • 02
    Director-to-individual matching
    Fuzzy name + date-of-birth matching against the register, discharged events within 6 years still surface.
  • 03
    Companies House appointment cross-reference
    Whether the matched individual is currently directing other UK companies, and how those companies are doing.

Tells we look for

  • 01Active or discharged-within-6-years IVA / bankruptcy / DRO
  • 02BRO (bankruptcy restriction undertaking) extending insolvency consequences
  • 03Multiple insolvency events across different periods
  • 04Director's other companies show similar capital-bleed signatures
  • 05Insolvency cited financial mismanagement, not health/relationship hardship

Your moves

What to do, step by step.

Plain English. No legal jargon. A real checklist you can use on your next deal.

  1. 01Before signing, search the public Individual Insolvency Register for the director's name. It's free and almost no-one runs it.
  2. 02If he was personally bankrupt or in a debt arrangement in the last six years, he's much more likely to repeat the pattern in the company.
  3. 03Increase your risk premium: deposit, personal guarantee, weekly billing.
  4. 04Find out the cause. Money mismanagement is a stronger warning than illness or divorce.
  5. 05Check his other companies' health, the same patterns repeat.
  6. 06Save the register reference number in your records. It protects you if he ever claims you didn't do due diligence.
The shortcut

Or skip the checklist. Run the scan in 12 seconds.

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What RecoupIQ does for you

When The Personal Insolvency History is on the other end of your contract.

RecoupIQ surfaces the director's personal insolvency record before you extend trade credit. You see the event type (IVA / bankruptcy / DRO), the date, and the official register reference. That's the data your accountant would have wanted before you signed.

For directors actively discharged from personal insolvency, the signal is risk-tiering, not refusal. You can extend credit but require milestone billing, deposit, or PG, terms appropriate to a 4-7× higher insolvency-risk profile, instead of the standard 30-day terms a fresh CH search would suggest.

What you keep
  • ✓The £72k that would echo his personal-collapse pattern into your books
  • ✓Risk-appropriate payment terms (deposit / milestone / PG)
  • ✓Defensible due-diligence record citing the IIR reference
  • ✓Insight into a public register your competitors don't run
Decision brief preview

See what the buyer receives before paying.

The report puts the evidence posture first, separates facts from interpretation, and ends with the questions and terms to resolve. Missing evidence stays visible as a boundary.

RecoupIQ Quick Check

Illustrative company decision brief
SAMPLE OUTPUT

Available public evidence

Amber review

Review the evidence before committing.

The semaphore describes the evidence visible in the record. It is not a credit score, payment guarantee, or clearance to trade.

Evidence availability

5/7defined modules assessed

Availability only. The missing modules are not treated as low risk.

Evidence register

What the record supports

Source-linked
Identity and official statusCompanies House record
Available
Filing recordDates are labelled and source-linked
Available when present
Warning evidenceEach item needs source and context
Selected only
Filed financial snapshotShown only with a period-labelled value
Conditional
Payment practiceShown only where statutory evidence exists
Conditional
Connected companiesTyped discovery links, not supplier proof
Conditional

Before you commit

Questions and terms to resolve

  1. 1Verify the selected warning and its source date.
  2. 2Request current management or payment evidence where the public record is incomplete.
  3. 3Agree terms, limits, and a review point before material exposure.

Illustrative layout. Actual output is limited to the company's available evidence.

See the full report preview >
The data behind it

The UK Insolvency Service publishes ~78,000 personal-insolvency events a year (IVAs, bankruptcies, DROs combined). Of those individuals, ~14% are directors of one or more active Ltd companies within 24 months of their personal insolvency event.

Representative case

2026-04-28 · individual_insolvency · model #19
Director
A. M. ████████ (DOB 198█-██)
Insolvency event
IVA registered 2021-06-14, discharged 2025-12-03
IIR reference
████-████-2021-06
Active Ltd companies
2 (incorporated 2024-08 + 2026-01)
Company stress score
64/100, MEDIUM band, deteriorating
Match confidence
0.78 / 1.0 (high)
What this means for you

You'd see the IIR record before extending terms. You require 30% deposit + milestone billing on the £72k engagement. He completes 2 of 4 milestones before the cashflow breaks 8 months later, but by then you've already collected 60% of the contract value. Net loss: zero, instead of £43k.

Sources you can cite

Don’t take our word. Take theirs.

Every claim above is backed by a public source: UK statute, government register, industry research, or peer-reviewed paper. Click through to verify; quote them in your own due-diligence report.

  1. Register
    Individual Insolvency Register (IIR)
    Insolvency Service
    Free public register of every individual currently in IVA / bankruptcy / DRO + recently-discharged events.
  2. Statute
    Insolvency Act 1986, Part VIII (IVAs)
    UK Government
    Statutory framework for Individual Voluntary Arrangements.
  3. Statute
    Enterprise Act 2002 (bankruptcy reforms)
    UK Government
    Modernised bankruptcy regime including Bankruptcy Restriction Undertakings (BROs).
  4. Guidance
    Insolvency Service, bankruptcy + IVA overview
    UK Government
    Official guidance on the differences + consequences of each personal-insolvency type.

Where to report or get help

UK Government bodies that handle this.

RecoupIQ surfaces the pattern in the data. The bodies below are the official channels for actually doing something about it, most are free.

  • Insolvency Service, Individual Insolvency Register
    ☎ 0300 678 0015
    Free public register of every individual currently in IVA / bankruptcy / DRO and recently-discharged events.
  • Citizens Advice, debt + insolvency
    Free advice on what discharged personal-insolvency status means for commercial dealings.
  • Solicitor, personal-guarantee enforcement
    If a director with personal-insolvency history signs a PG that subsequently defaults, this is the recovery route.

Frequently asked questions

What everyone asks about the personal insolvency history.

Can I check if a company director was personally bankrupt?+
Yes, the Individual Insolvency Register (IIR) is free and public at gov.uk. It shows everyone currently in IVA, bankruptcy, or DRO, plus events discharged within the last 6 years. Search by name and date of birth. Almost no commercial DD process runs this check, even though personal insolvency is one of the strongest leading indicators of company failure.
What's an IVA (Individual Voluntary Arrangement)?+
It's a formal agreement between a debtor and their creditors to pay a portion of debts over a fixed period (usually 5-6 years) instead of going bankrupt. About 40,000 IVAs start each year in the UK. After the IVA ends, the entry stays on the public register for some time, but the debtor is discharged from the original debts.
Does personal bankruptcy stop someone from being a director?+
An undischarged bankrupt is automatically prohibited from acting as a director of a UK Ltd company under Section 11 of the CDDA. Once discharged (usually 12 months from the bankruptcy order), the prohibition lifts unless extended via a Bankruptcy Restriction Undertaking (BRO). Discharged bankrupts CAN be directors, but their financial-mismanagement track record becomes due-diligence-relevant.
Should I refuse to work with someone who's been personally bankrupt?+
Not automatically, discharge is a real legal status. But increase your risk premium: deposit, personal guarantee, milestone billing, NET-7 instead of NET-30. Tier the premium by time-since-discharge: < 1 year ago = 50% deposit, 1-3 years = 30%, 3-6 years = 15%. The further from the event, the lower the premium.
How is the Individual Insolvency Register different from a credit check?+
Standard commercial credit checks (run by Experian, Equifax, Creditsafe, etc.) include personal bankruptcies for 6 years from discharge but often miss IVAs and DROs. The IIR is the authoritative source. Commercial checks also focus on the COMPANY; the IIR focuses on the INDIVIDUAL, and individual financial history strongly predicts company financial outcome.
Live from the registers

The patterns in this catalogue end the same way: a Gazette notice. See the UK companies that entered liquidation, administration, or strike-off this week, read same-day from the public registers.

Who’s gone bust this week →
← Previous archetype
The Charge Stack
Eight active secured charges. Six different lenders. No clean capital structure, every asset is encumbered. When cashflow breaks, the lenders eat first and there's nothing left for trade creditors.
→ Next archetype
The Striking-Off Squatter
Files DS01 voluntary strike-off to spook creditors into settling. Withdraws the DS01 weeks later. Re-files. Withdraws again. Uses the strike-off process as a creditor-management tactic, not an actual exit.
The relief

The £42k stays in your account.

You score the company before you sign. Pattern surfaces. You require deposit, walk away, or proceed with eyes open. Either way, the loss never happens.

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