Mother in late 70s with 0 cash value New York Life Insurance

My mother got a policy through New York Life Insurance from her job in 2008 and in 2018 they terminated her position when she took leave to get hip surgery. She called the insurance company and asked if she can continue the plan and they said yes and she continued to pay. In present time she has stage 3 cancer and new york life insurance raised her premium and told her that her cash value is 0 as she had not paid above the premium for the last 5 years and it might be a good option to cancel the policy as her children wont be getting anything. Her premium was only $59, I have seen a copy of her latest bill. Her new premium is $343. She says this entire thing was explained to her in a way that she just has to pay her premium and when she passes some money will be given to her 4 children but that seems to not be the case. I can see from the photos of the letters she sent me that it does explain something along the lines of “you should exceed your premium for your benefiarices to benefit”. Seems like my mother should have read these letters more thoroughly.

At this point she has paid thousands for life insurance that won’t do anything for anyone, just a total loss.

I am wondering what are her options. I am one of the beneficaries but i don’t really care to receive charity upon someones death, I am more concerned for my other siblings who aren’t doing as well. I can contribute 10-20k to her cash value today if it makes sense at a monetary level as in… the money in would exceed money gained upon her death. I can also pay her life insurance for the remainder of her time with us. She is in her late 70s. She thinks she has less than a year left, I am not too sure as she seems to be really resilient. I am not too concerned with paying the premium either way.

Just to be clear I am not looking to benefit from my mothers death, I am trying to improve the situation for my siblings and am hoping to just get what I put in or close to it while my siblings get something. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.