NEW YORK, Jan 5 (Reuters) - The number of companies at an increased risk of defaulting on their debt globally rose in December, though the number remains below the 2001 high, Kamakura Corp, a risk management information provider, said on Monday.

Companies with the largest increase in short-term default risk included U.S. Shipping Partners LP, Rotech Healthcare and YRC Worldwide (YRCW.O: Quote, Profile, Research), Kamakura said.

Kamakura's index of "troubled" public companies rose 1.4 percentage points in December, from November, to 24 percent of the global public company universe. The index showed credit quality declines for 16 of the past 17 months.

A company is considered "troubled" when its default probability is in excess of 1 percent. The index hit a high of 28 percent in September 2001.

Current credit conditions are better than only 4 percent of the monthly periods since the start of the index in January 1990, Kamakura said.

Companies with a default probability of more than 20 percent rose 1 percentage point to 3.3 percent in December, while companies with a 10-to-20 percent default risk rose 0.3 percentage point to 3.1 percent, the company said.

Companies with a 5-to-10 percent default risk jumped 0.2 percentage point to 4.4 percent in the month, Kamakura said. (Reporting by Karen Brettell; Editing by Leslie Adler)