Businesses with 51 to 100 employees saw a significant fall in insolvency rates year-on-year, from 0.20% in February 2011 to 0.12% in February this year.

Research from Experian found that this segment of the business population also saw the biggest year-on-year improvement in their financial strength score – from 81.68 to 85.41.

Across the UK’s business population as a whole, however, the rate of insolvencies rose from 0.08% in February 2011 to 0.10% during February 2012.

The increase in the overall insolvency rate for the UK’s business population was led by medium-to-large sized firms (101 to 500 employees), which saw a year-on-year rise from 0.12% in February last year to 0.17% this year.

The average financial strength score of UK businesses saw a marginal month-on-month fall, declining from 84.01 in January to 83.86 in February. However, this represented a significant year-on-year improvement on the 81.60 recorded in February 2011.

Max Firth, UK managing director for Experian’s Business Information Services division, said: “Although business insolvencies increased slightly in February