Had the same here for the old lady Sixy...
Last year she paid £332 fully comp with NU, this years 'automatic renewal' (WTF is that about anyway?) came in at a whopping £512

despite no claims or convictions.
A quick phone call to ask them if they had been taking my share of the class A's as well as their own resulted in the price being dropped down to £430 instantly.
Still not content with that (why am I paying almost £100 more the following year?), I too trawled the internet and got the price down to £322 with a company called Quinn Direct.
Not only is that the best price I have got for her, but the excess this time around is £0 which is far better than NU's offering of £150 which was in force last year.
Funny thing was, I did an online quote with NU after their renewal price came through, the online quote price was.........are you ready..........£361
@Wildy,
I was given that very excuse whenI questioned why the old lady's premium had gone up so much.
Strangely enough, they couldn't provide an answer when I asked why the old lady should be paying for mistakes made by other road users.