Auto insurance rates for teenagers are notoriously high. Teens are seen by insurance companies as especially risky drivers and thus they set higher premiums to cover these drivers. However, while auto insurance for your teen may be more expensive than for you, there are ways to minimize this increased cost and find manageable premium rates for your child.

Here are a couple ways in which you can work to prevent your teenager's car insurance from breaking the bank.

1.) The first piece of advice is to keep your options open. This may sound simple but it can actually be tremendously important when trying to find the best deal. If you don't already have a strong relationship with a specific insurance company it may pay to shop around. For example, many people make the mistake of assuming that a company's insurance rates are similar across the board. But, this can often be very wrong. The company with the lowest premiums for adults may actually have some of the highest premiums for teenagers.

2.) Forging a relationship with an auto insurance company can pay dividends down the road. This is true because many companies have special discount rates for long-time customers who have good driving records. Thus, your child may be able to benefit from your driving history as well as your relationship with a specific insurer. In such cases it may be a good idea to seek to consolidate all your insurance policies on the same account both for pricing and convenience.

3.) Your children can also be helpful in ensuring that it won't cost an arm and a leg to insure them. Most companies provide cheaper insurance policies for kids with good grades. Thus, parents may be able to create incentives for their kids to do well in school, like linking when or what kind of car their kids will get to their grades, that will also help them at the bank.

4.) Choosing the right car can also be important. Safer cars may allow parents to save a considerable amount in insurance premiums. Insurance companies will be more likely to cover teenagers at lower rates if they know that the kids are driving in safe, sturdy, and reliable cars.

5.) Finally, when kids go off to college you don't have to simply fight them not to drive when they are home or continue to pay the higher costs. Most companies have special plans for teens in college where rates are lowered while the kids can still be covered whenever they come home. This benefits everyone, the insurer, the parents and the kids.

The bottom line is that insuring your teenage driver may be costly but it does not have to be prohibitively expensive.