Only half of struggling borrowers have heard of IVAs, a report from insolvency trade body R3 indicates.

R3 has estimated that around 220,000 people are currently in a formal insolvency procedure (such as bankruptcy or an IVA). A further 500,000 are in debt management plans, 574,000 are struggling, but have ‘contacted their creditors informally’. And 961,000 people are struggling with their debts but haven’t yet looked for help with them.

R3′s report, called ‘Struggling with debts without help’, looks at that fourth group.

It ‘explores the views and experiences of individuals at the very bottom of the personal debt ‘iceberg’ – those who are struggling without help’.

The report covers a lot of subjects, like why those people haven’t sought debt advice, what they’ve done about their debts, and how things like age and gender affect attitudes.

Among other things, the borrowers were asked about their awareness of the options that might be open to them. They were asked if they’d heard of bankruptcy, IVAs, debt management plans and Debt Relief Orders (DROs).

Not surprisingly, bankruptcy was the best-known option: 80% had heard of it. IVAs came next – 51% of the people questioned had heard of IVAs. 41% knew of debt management plans, while just 14% knew of DROs (which have only existed for just over a year).

In terms of age, older people seemed more likely to have heard of IVAs. Only 31% of the 18-24-year-olds questioned had heard of IVAs, while 59% of the 45-54 and 65+ age groups had.