Hi Patrick. If her insurance policy has a like-for-like replacement policy, then they will replace the car with an identical model (assuming that model is still available). If it’s not a like-for-like situation then they would simply give her a cash payment.
The reasons for this are generally to make sure that the replacement car is not a better, more expensive, more desirable model than the original – insurance fraud is a real problem and there are plenty of examples of people having their car ‘stolen’ as a means of getting rid of it at the insurance company’s expense.
I would suggest that you try and go higher up the chain with the insurance company to see if there are any alternative options. Other colours might be more expensive and also change the insurance premium, which means it’s no longer like-for-like.
Of course, changing the colour of the car might not actually make her feel any better – it will still look and feel the same from the inside, and it’s still the same model car after all. So you could end up battling for a different colour and then find that it doesn’t really help her feel better after all.