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.

I had to get insurance for my mum last year for us to go to the USA. She had less than 6 months to live and all companies said no, however one reconsidered and after a lot of discussion agrees to insure at a cost of almost 3k and a 4K excess. Going without it wasn't an option.

No, but I'll get hell from everyone in the family. So not worth it.

She is being really selfish. I'm sure if you look on crowdfunding sites there are several,stories of people of all,ages who have gone abroad and got into trouble, and need medical care costing thousands of pounds.

Get insurance for,her, or sit with her and do it online.

www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/coping/practically/travelling-with-cancer/travel-insurance/specialist-policies-and-insurance-companies

You absolutely can get insurance There are specialist companies who offer it for the terminally ill

Just say no and if you do it online you can just take it out for her

If everyone in the family is so ready to give you grief then maybe they should foot the bill.

YADNBU and your mother is being very selfish. I didn't know you could get insurance for someone else (if they are an adult with capacity).
If she is not insured it puts you in the dreadful position. I'm sure only life saving/very urgent treatment would be given immediately (still with the expectation that it will be paid for later.)
I think cruise lines are completely aware of the problem and the following might give your mother pause for thought as I suspect they all have this policy
P&O policy
"it is a condition of the contract that you obtain travel insurance to cover the risk of you needing medical care on board or in a foreign country."

ask.pocruises.com/help/PO/before-you-sail/insurance

Cunard
"What happens if I do not have travel insurance?

You will not be able to travel without travel insurance. Please ensure you can obtain travel insurance before you book your holiday. It is a condition of the contract that you obtain travel insurance to cover the risk of you needing medical care on board or in a foreign country."

ask.cunard.com/help/before-you-sail/insurance

Her holiday company have made no such stipulation as far as I know but it's very possible she just told them about the general insurance when she booked.

Boots does a very thorough one. Just arranged it in a similar situation. You can't get annual/multi trip policies though, has to be done one trip at a time. Get her to get it quoted for. They were lovely on the phone with us.

She's being selfish.

Also, it could take years for you to see a dime from her estate. It's not as though she'll knock off and you'll immediately have the money you've lost back.

I'd tell her no to my savings. I know she's having ill health, but there is an option here - either she stops travelling or she takes out insurance.

Contact BIBA for specialist insurance.

What if she is rushed into intensive care abroad, survives for about a week, then dies. You'll have hospital bills running into hundreds of thousands plus the cost of repatriating a body.
Makes insurance seem cheap really.

can you jolt her into seeing sense by saying you'll tell the purser to cold storage her and collect her remains when the ship docks back in the uk

my mother is apt to make similar drama seeking statements and the best way is just to go with it, but ignore at the same time iyswim.

Definitely do not do this. Depending on what might happen and where, it could be hundreds of thousands. Even if it was something quite minor that didn't cost much in medical bills, just getting off the ship would rack up huge costs.

I knew people who travelled without insurance in their last months, but they all understood that meant if anything went badly wrong before they got home that they wouldn't be coming home and that would be that. They chose their location and managed their finances to reflect that. If your mother would actually expect you to pay a fortune to get her back to the UK she's being massively unreasonable.

I think I would try to take out the insurance and not tell her...

Macmillan, as mentioned up thread offer good advice, and I have bought medical insurance (though not for cancer) for MIL before through SAGA

Hope she has a good trip & returns well OP

Crack on if she is prepared to die alone abroad, not have her body repatriated and with a massive medical bill to be settled out of her estate.

Totally unfair to involve you.

As others have said would it be possible to take out insurance for her? I do hope so.

Insure her? just insist, no ifs or buts.

When I was a travel agent we dealt with repatriation, don't risk it.

Even without the money element (and the costs can be HORRENDOUS just to repatriate a body, let alone offer complex medical care or medi-evacuation), there is also the massive benefit of having an expert knowledgable international staff to take care of all the medical bureaucracy for you. The mental burden of that while worrying about a loved one sick in a country where you don't speak the language or know the healthcare system is a heavy one. Can you explain this to her, that it's not only about the money but about the responsibility and administrative burden if something goes wrong? How on earth would you know how to get her taken off a cruise ship, treated, stabilised medically and air-ambulanced to a facility at home? You wouldn't even know where to start.

I've been getting travel insurance for my mum for years, she has no idea who she's insured with.

She had a fall this year on holiday, after years of nothing going wrong.

Don't do it. FiL was Med-Evac'd back to UK from Europe, so pretty local really - it cost thousands and took me a day of phoning between hospital and Med-Evac people and specialists here to get it organised. We didn't know where he was going on arrival until he was in the air cos you can't just rock up at whatever hospital you fancy. It's not a straightforward process.

DS1's friend's mum spent the last year of her life (terminal breast cancer) going on fab hols. She died in a grotty foreign hospital having contracted an infection that they couldn't treat. Her body was repatriated at vast, uninsured expense. The whole episode was terrible and added enormously to her family's grief.

It's worth playing up the role of the insurers in organising things if you have trouble.

YANBU. You need to reiterate to her that you cannot afford this.

It would be wasting money to have to use up the estate to pay for horrific medical bills that would have otherwise been covered by insurance.

can I absolutely insist she finds her own insurance instead of relying on the Bank of Toconclude?

you can't insist, but you can make it clear to her that you can't afford to repatriate her.

we had to pay 10k for a simple broken leg repatriation for fil a few years back (he had insurance and we got the money back swiftly)

I know from Posts so far that this will be controversial- but she's your mum! She sounds like she will be absolutely fine and there will be no need for you to assist her. However, if u needed to help her, you could probably get a quick short term loan or interest free credit card if u don't have the cash, and I reckon she'd pay you back once home and recovered! If, heaven forbid, something more serious was to happen and she was to pass away, like she says, the inheritance would sort it!

She sounds like she's at the age where she wants to have a bit of fun, and probably thinks she has bought you up, so least you could Sonia help her out if anything was to happen to her - which I'm sure you'd do!

Obviously, there may be a hidden difficult history between you both, in which case things will obviously Be more complicated!

I'd chill out OP! She'll b fine! and if she does need your financial assistance, you'll more than likely get it back one way or another! And in the process, you'd be helping the woman who raised you and bought you into the world!