"In the past several months, many states have turned their attentions to helping residents deal with higher costs for their personal insurance expenditures. That includes the state of North Carolina, where a public hearing about proposed home insurance rate changes has been pushed back to October, but remains on the docket for state regulators. Because many people across the country may have developed a more dour view of their insurance companies in recent years - thanks to higher costs than they'd been accustomed to - it might be wise for agents to try to do more to improve their relationships with clients going forward. A scheduled hearing on proposed price increases for North Carolina home insurance policies was originally slated for early August, but has now been pushed back to late October, so that regulators have more time to prepare testimony, according to a report from the office of state insurance commissioner Wayne Goodwin. This comes after insurance companies in the state proposed rate hikes averaging 25.3 percent earlier this year. While these price jumps would obviously vary depending on the part of the state in which property owners live, residents would nonetheless likely face an increase overall. More important information While there will not be any opportunity for the public to speak during the hearing later this year, people can still attend, the report said. Further, those who were worried about the proposed price increases also had the ability to submit comments for most of the month of January. During this upcoming hearing, a number of experts on both sides of the argument will give testimony, and in the end, Goodwin will also be present to make a final ruling as to whether the proposed premium increases are, in fact, warranted. Insurance agents whose clients have seen premium costs rise even somewhat appreciably over the past few years might have to deal with a little more in the way of disgruntled phone calls and the like, and often, there isn't much they can do in terms of pricing. However, studies show that the ability to build strong relationships with consumers is usually more important for agents than simply being able to provide low prices. However, having the ability to strike a reasonable balance between the two will likely lead to the best possible situations going forward."