When default leads to exclusion from financial markets, the implied loss of consumption smoothing opportunities is more costly when income volatility is high. A rise in income risk thus makes default less attractive, allowing creditors to relax borrowing limits. I show how, in an open economy, this endogenous financial deepening may reduce aggregate foreign assets in response to a rise in individual income risk, against the precautionary savings intuition. Conditions for this depend on whether default constrains complete or uncontingent contracts. The post-1980 rise in US household income risk strongly reduces foreign assets when domestic markets are complete or world interest rates low.