Seems like most of us are expecting something, but counting on nothing.
Up until 18 months ago I wouldn't have expected anything. My father was living as though he barely had enough pension & Social Security.
However between mid-stage Alzheimer's & multiple myeloma, things have changed. He's doing "as well as can be expected" now with medications (and after chemotherapy) but there's just no way to predict his longevity. After extensive research, the best I can say is that it's more than one year and less than a decade.
I'm now his conservator, too, so I've learned that for the last 25 years he's been living on half of his pension/SS and investing the rest in equity mutual funds. I suspect that he won't outlive his money. Any inheritance will be a very meaningful sum to my brother and could put him over the top to ER. Of course the exact opposite is true for spouse & me, since we're already ER'd, and we honestly have no idea what to do with the money. My Dad's father spent 14 years in a care facility with dementia (but not Alzheimer's) so my spouse's cynical plan is to use my share of any inheritance to pay for my eldercare expenses.
I've tweaked Dad's asset allocation from 85% stocks down to about 35%/15%/50% equities/bonds/cash. His long-term care insurance will cover most of his expenses through late 2014, and after that he'll still have his pension/SS to slow the spend down. There's just no way to predict what the best use of the money could be until we actually end up going through probate.
My brother will get his fair share so there's no need for me to disclaim my share to him. I worry about affluenza & entitlement for our daughter, but she's almost 20 years old now and over the next decade I'm pretty sure I'll stop worrying about that. I mostly spend my time wishing Dad had not lived such a frugal life, but he ER'd at the age of 53 and enjoyed over two decades of the things he likes to do.
Ironically Alzheimer's has taken those memories. He currently thinks he's on a protracted 1960s business trip, working at the care facility and being allowed to stay there on weekends until he finishes his project. He says he wants to earn enough money to give some to us when he dies. We reassure him that he's done a great job and that he should do what he wants, and he says he has nothing that he wants to spend the money on. A few minutes later the entire conversation starts from the beginning all over again. At least it always has a happy ending, so he feels good about how well he's taken care of us.
One lesson learned from his decline into Alzheimer's is that it can cost $10K of medical & legal expenses before things settle down. I was also another $20K into the care facility expenses before the long-term care insurance claim was finally approved (and backdated). This was for a guy living a very simple life with minimal possessions in a 2BR apartment, so I can't imagine how much worse it would have been with real estate or business partnerships or other entanglements. I never expected to be spending an emergency fund on those kinds of expenses.