The topic of the enforcement of the property of the natural person who is an individual debtor is only a part of a broader subject matter that rattles global economy burdened with problems. The need for the institute of personal insolvency exists, and it is emphasised by the economic reality in which an increasing number of over-indebted subjects who are not able to pay their debt, so their very existence is frequently threatened. Apart from numerous psychological and social repercussions, the consequence of this is an additional burden for the state budget through the obligations of social welfare. The purpose of this paper is to analyse this problem theoretically and empirically, setting postulates that will be applicable in the implementation of the solutions from the Draft (2014) into the legal order of the Republic of Croatia. Namely, in the times of recession, the number of blocked citizens and their unsettled obligations are significantly higher than in the period of economic prosperity. One of the reasons is to examine whether general economic situation affects the trend of the overall number of blocked citizens and their unsettled obligations. By the application of multiple regression method on the data about the overall number of blocked Croatian citizens and their unsettled obligations, a significant influence of the growth of unemployment, change of the foreign currency exchange and the drop of approved loans on the increase in the number of blocked citizens and their unsettled obligations was recognised. The results also show that the increase of the number of blocked citizens and their unsettled obligations influences the reduction of loan approvals, i.e. the banks are reducing the loan offer because of the increase of riskiness of repayment due to deteriorated conditions in the macroeconomic environment. Thus more indebted citizens can find themselves in the situation in which they cannot pay due obligations and cannot refinance them, which additionally influences the increase in the number of insolvent persons.