The Financial Rights Legal Centre says it has been forced to cut its Insurance Law Service (ILS) in half and consumers are losing access to Australia’s only free insurance legal advice helpline due to insufficient funding.

Financial Rights has started a petition to the Commonwealth Attorney General which so far has 95 signatures.

Since 2007, the free legal advice service has operated seven hours each weekday but from today that will be dropped to three hours from 10am. Without an injection of funding this service will be cut even more drastically next year, Financial Rights warns.

The service was already oversubscribed with less than 40% of calls answered each day on average.

“I am devastated to have to cut the service in half, but we have lost so many solicitors because of insufficient funding, we have no choice,” Financial Rights Legal Centre CEO Karen Cox said. “Our phones are already ringing off the hook.”

Hundreds of consumers will not be able to access independent and free legal advice about their insurance, she says.

“There is nowhere else for them to go for specialist advice.”

Without further financial support the ILS’s national advice line will “struggle to remain viable”.

“The small amount of funding currently provided by the Attorney-General’s Department is insufficient for this vital national service. Other sources of funding that have kept the service afloat are running out,” the petition says.

Use of the service has increased by over 600% since it started, answering over 65,000 calls for legal advice and representing over 1400 clients for free during disputed claims on income protection, travel insurance, car insurance and home and contents policies.

“Some people have scrimped and saved to pay for insurance premiums they can ill afford, only to have their claim denied when they really need it or to discover that the insurance product itself is a bit of a sham. The ILS gives people who can’t afford legal advice a fighting chance,” the petition says.