Confessions of a Globetrotter: A political risk insurance underwriter’s life among gold mines, insurgents, and clan chiefs

In the spring of 1988, a request landed on Daniel Wagner's desk in lower Manhattan: would the world's largest insurance company guarantee payment for a shipment of cigarette rolling papers to Saddam Hussein?He said yes. Saddam paid.So began his nearly four decades in political risk insurance — the quiet business of protecting companies against governments that seize their assets, refuse to pay, cancel a license or contract, or simply change the rules overnight. It is the reason capital reaches places it otherwise wouldn't, and why few people outside the industry know it exists.Confessions of a Globetrotter is the story of that career, told from the inside. Wagner flew to a gold mine at 14,000 feet in Irian Jaya to share his view about a dispute between a mining giant and the U.S. government. He took a canoe to an island in Papua New Guinea to drink coconut juice with a clan chief whose consent a billion-dollar mine depended on. He met Maoist insurgents in western Nepal who left their AK-47s at the door, had a drink with Imelda Marcos at one in the morning, built a guarantee program inside two multilateral development banks, and was flown by private jet to a Lagos megachurch by a man who wanted to meet him and would not say why.The son of two orphans, he spent his working life pricing the risk that governments turn their backs on the people who depend on them. Along the way he helped create jobs for tens of thousands of people in the developing world. None of them will ever know his name.Some reviews:“A compelling read. As if Tom Clancy, Paul Theroux, and Franz Kafka collaborated to pen this wonderful memoir.”James Matti, Senior Managing Director, Willis Tower Watson, Philippines“Anyone trying to understand where global capital is really exposed today should read this book.”Dr. Miray Zaki, Group Chief Investment Officer, Al Liwan Group.“