Honestly, on paper the current lower tier 2000D/Rebel T7 matches or exceeds just about every specification from the more than a decade old 500D/Rebel T1i.
It does have slightly lower burst rate and buffer: The 2000D can shoot at 3.0 fps for 150 JPEGs or 11 raw, while the 500D can go at 3.5 fps for 170 JPEGs or 9 raw.
One difference you might could have used to argue that the 2000D won't do what the 500D can do is use Magic Lantern. There is a stable version of Magic Lantern available for the 500D. There is no finished or even "beta" version of Magic Lantern available for the 2000D/Rebel T7 or 4000D.
You could have tried to convince the insurance company that using some of the functionality that Magic Lantern offers which isn't included in Canon's firmware was vital to the way you used your 500D/Rebel T1i, then they might budge and allow for a model that can currently run Magic Lantern.
Alas, none of Canon's current models have a stable version of ML available, so you'd be looking at what a used 700D/Rebel T7i would cost.
There is one glaring difference between the 500D/T1i and the 2000D/Rebel T7, though: A center pin in the hot shoe that allows using third party non-TTL third party flashes.
The 500D/Rebel T1i has one, the 2000D and 4000D do not. (At least the initial production runs did not. There have been reports that very recent 2000D bodies do now include a standard center pin hot shoe (though no one has yet confirmed that it actually is connected to anything internally), but you don't know that, right?) If you have third party flashes that worked with the 500D but won't work with camera lacking the center pin, that might be just the thing to convince them they need to provide a camera that can use your current flashes or, in addition to the camera, they need to also provide Canon flashes that will work with the "borked" hot shoe. It will be cheaper for them to buy you an 800D than to buy a 2000D AND couple of Canon flashes!