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According to early bankruptcy data from Epiq, total bankruptcy filings across the country increased 4% to 32,695 filings in October 2022 over the 31,493 see during the same period last year.
Epiq reported that all individual filing increased 4% while the 1,886 commercial filings in October 2022 represented a 5% increase over last year.
“With inflation increasing the costs of goods and services, and with interest rates rising, families and businesses have been presented with tough financial decisions,” said ABI Executive Director Amy Quackenboss. “Though filing rates are still below their pre-pandemic totals, struggling households and businesses are still turning to bankruptcy for relief from mounting economic challenges.”
Across all filing chapters, each category reported a decrease compared to September’s figures. October’s bankruptcy filings represent a 2% decrease from September’s filings; individual filings for the month were down a single percent from September’s 13,814 reported filings. The commercial filing total represented a 7% decrease from the September commercial filing total of 2,015. Commercial chapter 11 filings decreased 32% from the 445 filings the previous month, while subchapter V elections within chapter 11 decreased 16% from the 156 filed in September.
“While comparing month-over-month or year-over-year filings is one way to determine what's trending in the bankruptcy market, the delta between new filings and closed cases is another valuable capacity metric,” said Gregg Morin, VP of Business Development and Revenue at Epiq Bankruptcy.
According to Morin, not since 2010 have there been more new filings in a year than cases that were closed and it’s trending that way again in 2022, as there have been 61,857 more cases closed than were opened through October 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. For the past four months, the difference has steadily decreased, from 7,627 in July, to 6,516 in August, 5,291 in September, and 3,252 in October.
Click here to view Epiq’s report.
