 This holding out paid off when another suitor, Conseco Inc., purchased Washington National for $410 million.In 2005, Paulson Co. analyst Paolo Pellegrini convinced John Paulson of the danger of weak credit underwriting standards, excessive leverage among financial institutions and a fundamental mispricing of credit risk particularly in the housing market.Paulson began "shorting" this credit risk by purchasing the hitherto obscure derivative known as credit default swaps to "insure" debt securities (Paulson Co. did not own those securities it was "insuring", but merely believed they would default) they thought would decline in value due to weak credit underwriting.