We measured 2,122 claimed Google Business Profiles across home insurance, commercial brokerage and mortgage lending in the Salt Lake City area. 1,622 of them — 76.4% — have fewer than ten photos. These are the highest-trust purchases a household makes: the mortgage, the policy on the house, the cover on the business. Three in four firms selling them show a prospective client almost nothing.
The same day we ran the identical measurement across dentists, plumbers, HVAC, roofing, auto repair and law firms in the same city. There it was 42.5% — that study is here. Financial services is 34 points worse. It is the thinnest sector we have measured.
76.4% have fewer than ten photos — 82% among mortgage lenders. 60.8% have fewer than twenty-five reviews. The sector that sells trust is the one showing the least evidence of it.
How We Ran the Study
On 19 August 2026 we queried Google Maps business listing data at scale, taking a 25 km radius around downtown Salt Lake City — a circle covering Salt Lake City, Murray, West Valley City, Sandy and the edge of Draper.
We took six categories spanning the three groups our clients ask about. Of 2,541 listings found, 2,122 were owner-claimed.
| Group | Category | Listings | Claimed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mortgage | Mortgage lenders | 910 | 749 |
| Mortgage | Mortgage brokers | 359 | 298 |
| Insurance | Insurance agencies | 730 | 570 |
| Insurance | Home insurance agencies | 296 | 286 |
| Commercial | Insurance brokers | 126 | 115 |
| Commercial | Commercial real estate | 120 | 104 |
| Total | 2,541 | 2,122 |
Why we separate the two: an unclaimed listing has no hours, no website and no description almost by definition — nobody has ever logged in to add them. Blending the two populations produces alarming numbers that say nothing about real firms. Every quality measure below is against claimed profiles only.
Finding 1: Three in Four Are Under Ten Photos
| Category | Fewer than 10 photos |
|---|---|
| Mortgage lenders | 82% (616 of 749) |
| Insurance agencies | 78% (445 of 570) |
| Mortgage brokers | 78% (231 of 298) |
| Home insurance agencies | 67% (193 of 286) |
| Insurance brokers | 66% (76 of 115) |
| Commercial real estate | 59% (61 of 104) |
| All claimed | 76.4% (1,622 of 2,122) |
Not one category comes in under 59%. The best performer here would be among the worst in the trades.
There is a reason, and it is not laziness. An insurance office or a mortgage desk does not produce photogenic work. A roofer photographs the roof. A lender has a conference room and a logo. So the profile gets three flat shots and is never touched again.
Why it costs you anyway: the 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors report treats engagement with the profile — photo views, dwell time, video watches — as behavioural signals Google reads. A profile with three photos gives a visitor nothing to look at. And on the human side, this is a purchase where the buyer is quietly asking whether the firm is real, established and staffed. Photos answer that faster than any paragraph.
What you cannot do is generate them. AI-generated photos and videos are now an explicitly scored negative factor in the 2026 report. The shortcut is closed. It has to be the actual office, the actual team, the actual closing table.
Finding 2: Three in Five Are Under Twenty-Five Reviews
1,291 of 2,122 claimed profiles (60.8%) have fewer than twenty-five reviews. That is far thinner than the trades, where the same measure was 38.6%.
| Category | Fewer than 25 reviews |
|---|---|
| Commercial real estate | 79% |
| Mortgage lenders | 67% |
| Mortgage brokers | 62% |
| Insurance agencies | 59% |
| Insurance brokers | 57% |
| Home insurance agencies | 42% |
| All claimed | 60.8% |
Four in five commercial real estate agencies are below twenty-five reviews. The 2026 report moved recency of reviews up to #11, from around #20 in 2023 — Google treats a steady arrival of new reviews as evidence a firm is active right now, because it has no other way to know.
That is a gift to this sector, because the deal cycle produces a natural moment to ask. A policy binds. A loan funds. A lease signs. Ask then, every time.
Finding 3: The Basics Are Mostly Handled
Where the sector does well, it does well quietly. Among claimed profiles:
- Opening hours: only 86 of 2,122 (4.1%) have none on file.
- Website link: 327 (15.4%) have no site attached.
- Business description: 370 (17.4%) have none.
The standout is home insurance agencies at 4% with no website — 12 of 286, the best figure we recorded in any category, in either study, on any measure. Mortgage lenders are weakest at 18%.
A missing link is not only a lost click. Two map pack factors depend on a landing page being attached — keywords in the landing page title tag (#17) and in the headings (#20). And do not stuff the description with keywords: that is now the single most damaging negative factor measured, with the highest suspension risk of the eight scored.
The Full Table
All measures against claimed profiles only.
| Category | Claimed | No hours | No website | No description | <10 photos | <25 reviews |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mortgage lenders | 749 | 4% | 18% | 19% | 82% | 67% |
| Insurance agencies | 570 | 5% | 17% | 21% | 78% | 59% |
| Mortgage brokers | 298 | 3% | 16% | 12% | 78% | 62% |
| Home insurance agencies | 286 | 1% | 4% | 10% | 67% | 42% |
| Insurance brokers | 115 | 4% | 13% | 14% | 66% | 57% |
| Commercial real estate | 104 | 8% | 16% | 25% | 59% | 79% |
| All | 2,122 | 4.1% | 15.4% | 17.4% | 76.4% | 60.8% |
Home insurance agencies are the strongest category by a clear margin, best on four of the five measures. Commercial real estate is worst on three — hours, description and reviews — while mortgage lenders are worst on website links and photos.
The pattern is consistent. The smaller, owner-operated categories keep tidier profiles than the high-volume lender category, where a large share of listings appear to be individual loan officers whose profile nobody really owns.
What To Do About It This Week
1. Get to twenty real photos. This is the sector's biggest gap and the clearest fix. The office exterior so people find the door. Reception. Every person on the team, named. The conference room. A signing. A handover of keys. Phone camera is fine. Not generated — that is a scored negative now.
2. Ask for the review at the close. The moment the policy binds or the loan funds. Three in five of you are under twenty-five reviews, and recency now outranks total volume.
3. Link the site. One in six profiles sends the customer nowhere and forfeits two ranking factors doing it.
4. Write the description like a person. What you place, who you place it for, which carriers or lenders. No keyword stuffing.
5. Check the hours anyway. Only 4% are missing them, but if you are in that 4% you are failing the #5 ranking factor for the sake of two minutes.
6. Add every service Google offers you. Keywords in Google Business Profile services jumped 75 places in the 2026 report, from #110 to #35. Twenty minutes.
Limitations worth stating: this is a snapshot taken on 19 August 2026 inside one 25 km circle. Google category assignment is imperfect — some firms appear under more than one of our six categories, so the counts are of listings rather than guaranteed-distinct companies. Where a claimed profile returned no opening hours we treat that as none on file; in a small number of cases it may be a gap in the source data. The ranking-factor weights come from Whitespark's 2026 survey of 47 practitioners scoring 187 factors: expert consensus, not a measurement of Google's algorithm. What we measured is how many local firms currently satisfy them.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many photos do insurance and mortgage offices have on their Google profile?
Very few. In our August 2026 study of 2,122 claimed Google Business Profiles across insurance, brokerage and mortgage categories in the Salt Lake City area, 1,622 profiles (76.4%) had fewer than ten photos. Mortgage lenders were worst at 82%. For comparison, across trades and professional services in the same city on the same day the figure was 42.5%.
Why do photos matter for an insurance or mortgage Google Business Profile?
The 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors report treats engagement with a profile — photo views, dwell time, video watches — as behavioural signals Google reads. A profile with three photos gives a prospective client nothing to engage with. These are also high-trust purchases where the buyer is deciding whether a firm is real and established, and photos are the fastest proof available.
How many reviews does a typical mortgage or insurance office have?
Fewer than 25, more often than not. Across 2,122 claimed profiles, 1,291 (60.8%) had fewer than 25 reviews. Commercial real estate agencies were worst at 79% and mortgage lenders at 67%, while home insurance agencies were strongest at 42%. Recency of reviews moved up to #11 in the 2026 ranking factors, from around #20 in 2023.
Do insurance agencies write a business description on Google?
Most do. Across 2,122 claimed profiles, 370 (17.4%) had no business description at all. Commercial real estate agencies were worst at 25%, while home insurance agencies were strongest at 10%. The description is the one field where a firm explains itself in its own words, and it is increasingly what AI answer engines quote.
Which financial services category has the weakest Google profiles in Salt Lake City?
It splits. Commercial real estate agencies were worst on three of five measures — hours, description and reviews — while mortgage lenders were worst on website links and photos. Home insurance agencies were the strongest category by a clear margin, best on four of the five measures.
How was this insurance and mortgage Google Business Profile study conducted?
On 19 August 2026 we queried Google Maps business listing data at scale for six categories — insurance agencies, home insurance agencies, insurance brokers, mortgage brokers, mortgage lenders and commercial real estate agencies — within a 25 km radius of downtown Salt Lake City. Of 2,541 listings found, 2,122 were owner-claimed. All profile-quality measures are reported against those claimed profiles only.
Where does your office stand?
Book a consultation and we will walk your profile with you — photos, review flow, hours, categories, services, description and the negative factors. Prefer to start on your own? The free scan sends you the same list, no call required.