Around the World in 80 Days. In today's world of high-speed transportation and electronic communication, such a long trip sounds sort of quaint. As the world continues to shrink, modern risk managers are finding new and creative ways to deal with worldwide risk exposures, and claim service providers are being challenged to develop new and better communications, processes, and networks to meet their needs.

Continued globalization has increased the number of companies that need help managing their claims on an international scale. Such opportunities also have increased because many international corporations have chosen or had to accept huge self-insured retentions and deductibles due to insurers' reluctance to continue providing coverage at lower levels, and a significant increase in commercial line premiums.

Although global programs fall into several categories, they still can be considered either traditional field expertise and loss adjusting, or global claim administration.