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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Viewpoints ID: #63221 Medium Pine Trees and a Bigger Bill

Read the following blog post from a website.

Last month the renewal letter for our house arrived, and I had to read it twice. Our home insurance, for a small place at the edge of a pine forest outside Kamloops, is going from $2,100 to $5,400 a year. Two summers ago we watched smoke rise from the ridge and packed the car twice in one week. But my partner and I both teach, and that jump is more than our grocery money for two months. So I have spent my evenings reading about the province’s plan to let insurers price wildfire risk house by house.

Audra Pellerin, an insurance economist, argues that honest prices push people to protect their homes faster than any public campaign. At a provincial hearing she said that claims files keep pointing to untreated cedar roofs as the cause of repeat losses. She also wants the province to update its public hazard maps every year, so owners can understand what pushed their price up and which repairs would bring it back down. Femi Ogden, who serves as mayor of a nearby lakeside town, sees a different danger. He says he could live with modest surcharges, but a sudden cliff in prices would push retirees out. When homes stop selling, he warned, the property taxes that pay for the volunteer fire department shrink with them.

Lise Hackett, who oversees mortgage lending for the province, warns that banks will quietly stop lending in the riskiest postal codes if nobody stands behind the insurers. She supports pricing by risk, but only after the province sets up a temporary public reinsurance pool. Tiago Rhodes, our regional fire chief, says prices alone will not make a single home safer. He wants grants that help owners clear brush and replace roofs, plus inspection stickers so a safer home earns its discount quickly. He adds that each town’s firebreak plans must be made public before the steepest price tiers take effect.

Where does all this leave my family? Pellerin’s argument holds up: a real price sends a real message, and our cedar roof is honestly a problem. But Ogden and Rhodes convinced me that the message has to come with help and with time. I will apply for a hardening grant the day the program opens and put a metal roof on before our next renewal. My request to the province is a slower climb, with Hackett’s pool in place first, so that teachers and retirees can still afford to live among the pines.

Using the drop-down menu (▾), choose the best option according to the information given on the website.

This blog post is mainly about 1.
.

Who most clearly suggests that some buyers may be unable to get a loan? 2.
.

Audra Pellerin’s position would most likely be supported by 3.
.

What outcome does Tiago Rhodes’s condition call for? 4.
.

The blogger mentions the renewal letter mainly to 5.
.

The following is a comment by a visitor to the website page. Complete the comment by choosing the best option to fill in each blank.

We live about an hour north of the blogger, in a town surrounded by the same kind of pine forest. What the economist said about 6.
 made the most sense to me, and I wish our own insurer had heard it. The mayor’s warning that 7.
 is the part the province keeps skipping over. I would add that the regional chief is right to want 8.
, since he has clearly seen what a bad summer does to a street. I admire your plan to 9.
, and I hope the grant money arrives in time for you. The mayor also says 10.
, and the province should take note of that.

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