To think this is irresponsible and an unfair ask?

[toconclude]

DM (age: mid 80s) has stage 4 cancer. She is not suitable for further treatment. She continues to have as active a life as she can including multiple holidays - 4th one this year is booked. It's not a once in a lifetime trip, just a regular cruise.
Great stuff, keep calm and carry on, etc. I'm right behind that.
However. Her regular travel insurance will no longer cover her. Her proposal is to go uninsured and expect me (as I have savings, sister does not as she spends every thing she earns) to pay if anything goes wrong "and you'll get it back out of my estate".

I'm worried, but she's not, that the cost of (eg being airlifted off a ship) could possibly be more than I actually have - suspect because she knows DH has a pension pot too. I've pointed her to specialist insurers. Silence. Offered to pay the damn premium. Silence. It's some weird thing about 'not wasting money' I think.
Either way, can I absolutely insist she finds her own insurance instead of relying on the Bank of Toconclude?

Braces self for being told how vile and mean and unsupportive I am of dying parent. But honestly, I don't think I am. Just practical.

You are sensible. You should only bet what you can afford to lose.

You are absolutely not being unreasonable on this

I think your DM is being quite selfish in expecting you to pick up the pieces.

You are most definitely not being U.

You are absolutely being sensible. Medical treatment and repatriation can cost 10s of thousands - it's unreasonable of her to expect you to fund this. Just take out the insurance on her behalf - you don't need her consent

OMG she is being completely irresponsible stick to your guns and insist that she takes out insurance and you will not have the funds to bring her back and she will likely end up dying out there without her family there! She is clearly completely oblivious to what it really could likely cost.

Not being unreasonable at all.

If you leave the country without suitable insurance then don't expect others to pick up the pieces. Even more so when high risk anyway.

If she insists on going anyway can you just do the insurance behind her back so at least you have peace of mind?

Can one really take out travel insurance on someone else? Didn't know that. That might be a real option then.
researches

She is being very unreasonable , can you research the insurance for her .

YADNBU

can you take out the insurance for her?

I work in travel insurance- do not do this. Cruise ships are catastrophically expensive even just for things like gastro. Depending on where she is going an airlift to shore could be crippling. They will airlift to the nearest shore - where will that be? You then have medical expenses there plus the potential for an Air Ambulance back to the UK. This could be upwards of £150k all in all depending on where she's going. There are specialist insurance companies that may cover this. It will be very expensive but far far less expensive than the alternative.

I don't see why not. I assume you know all of her details/full history so may be worth a try.

You can take out insurance for her but you HAVE to have all her medical details correct otherwise you may invalidate the insurance.

Can you go ahead and book the extra insurance?

Really selfish of her. And realistically, her estate might not even cover her bills. They could run into hundreds of thousands depending on what went wrong.

She can still get a cheaper insurance but they just won't pay out on anything that relates to the cancer. A family friend was given 3 years to live with cancer so he went on lots of holidays, basically spent all his money. This was 6 years ago and he is still here, though getting more Ill.

Anyway, he travels with insurance and they say that's fine, they will pay out for any claim not related to cancer, e.g. broken bone etc. She will still need insurance in case of bags/personal possessions going missing.

Yanbu to not want to pay for her though.

Just another thought, who is she crusing with? We use P and O and have always had to provide them with details of who we are insured with before being able to get tickets.

She's going uninsured just because her usual insurer won't cover her? But she is still eligible to get insurance elsewhere?
YANBU btw. I just can't understand why she isn't getting insurance elsewhere?

She assumed she won't get insurance if her standard policy doesn't cover - which as Brittbugs says, only covers baggage etc, no medical issues. I don't know if she is eligible elsewhere, she hasn't checked, just proposes to wing it. Possibly following the (bad) example of someone else she knows who did it and got lucky - went to the States and nothing went wrong.

I can see she is "going for broke" as she feels she has nothing to lose. But it is not reasonable to involve you in this and to have such expectations of you, especially as your sibling is not expected to contribute. Taking the insurance out on her behalf is a minefield as insurance companies hold you to the absolute letter of the form, and if any tiny detail, however irrelevant it might seem, of her medical history were not correct they would not honour it.

I would strongly suggest that you ask her to take it out and you pay for it - could she be persuaded to go along with that? Say you would rather do that than risk any complications in her care abroad, as, if done properly, everything will be taken care of by the insurance company. If you have no insurance involved, not only would you have to pay for it all, but you would also have to organise it all. Hopefully she might appreciate that argument.

As someone who recently went through the experience of having to have a critically sick elderly parent Medivac'd from a holiday (they had insurance!!), I strongly suggest that you refuse her request. It is a complex process at the best of times.

www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/advice/Travel-advice-travel-insurance-for-cancer-sufferers/
Insurance companies will cover her.

www.macmillan.org.uk/information-and-support/organising/travel-and-holidays/travel-insurance/finding-travel-insurance.html

Does she have any idea what the costs would be?
Can you show her?