It is not racial profiling at all, it is economic profiling, did you know that when an aircraft crashes and pax are killed the underwriters will look at the economic status and potential of each passenger when deciding their pay-out?
As your wife was on a Philippines passport and in her own home country, (regardless of right to abode in UK), they assumed, reasonably or otherwise, that she needed less support than, say, a foreign national who had checked out of their hotel and had no where to go.
Once 'normal' goes out the window you are dealing with hard nosed insurance underwriters and it is only the small print that counts. The ticket issued in UK would have probably contained sufficient caveats to cover the situation your wife found herself in but, like you, I never read them!