When picking out the best cars for teens, safety is usually the biggest concern for parents. The cost of insuring a car is tied to the risk of causing injury or property damage. Using insurance costs as a proxy for risk and safety, we examined 125 cars for a sample 18-year-old driver living in Pennsylvania, to see which types of cars insurers saw as least risky and safest.

We found a wide range of insurance costs in the sample with the Mazda MX-5 Miata as the cheapest car to insure, Subaru Outback was the second cheapest to insure and Volkswagen Golf GTI took third place. For the best cars to insure for adults, visit here.

Best cars for teens

The table below shows the 20 cheapest models to insure for our 18 year-old sample driver. Smaller compact cars, such as the Mazda MX-5 Miata and the Volkswagen Golf GTI, made it into the top 20 list. SUVs and larger cars were also represented, including the Subaru Outback and the Honda Odyssey.

Most expensive cars to insure for teens

The list of the most expensive cars to insure is largely made up of compact cars and vans. The amount of the annual insurance premium varied by more than $640 between the cheapest (Mazda MX-5 Miata) and most expensive (Kia Forte) to insure. Surprisingly, some of the most expensive cars to insure had sticker prices less than $20,000, including the Kia Forte and Honda Civic.

How we conducted the study

The ranking was based on the most purchased cars in 2014 that cost less than $30,000; there were a total of 125 cars included in the study. The example driver we used was an 18-year-old male, who had a clean driving record and a good credit score, who used his car mostly for commuting to school or work.

The average cost for insuring each car was calculated by getting quotes from 20 different auto insurance companies in Pennsylvania. We used requirements for auto insurance in Pennsylvania for the policy coverage in the study.