Angling for a larger share of association market, Securian Financial has inked a pact with AGIA Affinity to offer its protection products to clients of the full-service brokerage and marketing company. The deal gives Securian access to more than 100 affinity groups serving more than 30 million members.

The insurance on offer from Securian includes fast, easy-to-issue products that entail little or no underwriting; and that appeal to the underserved middle-market, a strategic focus of the St. Paul-based carrier. The products — including accidental death, cancer, hospital indemnity term life and travel accident insurance — will be marketed and administered by AGIA.

Also in the works are product and feature enhancements likely to appeal to AGIA’s association clients. “We’re aiming to build a robust portfolio for AGIA to leverage with its association groups,” says William Gould, VP of Securian’s Financial Institution Group. “These include new features for our accidental death, travel accident and cancer products.”

The deal avails Securian of affinity marketing services in which AGIA specializes. Among them: multi-channel communications; a technology platform for planning, executing, and measuring campaign performance; and a data-driven test-and-learn methodology. Also available from AGIA are lifecycle marketing (such as plan enrollment and branded customer-service); market research on affinity group members; plus analysis of “actionable” data sources about group members.

Securian is not the sole insurer selling products to AGIA client associations. Gould says other unnamed carriers round out AGIA’s portfolio, including permanent life insurance products (whole and universal life), short- and long-term disability, long-term care and critical illness insurance, plus other protection products.

Left undisclosed in the announcement are associations that AGIA counts among its clients. An AGIA representative could not be reached for comment by press time.

The partnership, says Gould, expands on other sectors that Securian is targeting for its products. These include financial institutions (such as banks and credit unions) and the employer market for group and voluntary products.

“The association play with AGIA is a great adjacent market space for us,” says Gould. “It offers another opportunity to connect with prospects in the underserved middle market.”

According to its 2016 annual report, Securian generated nearly $3.4 billion in revenue from premiums and policy/contract fees last year, up from $3.1 billion in 2015. Proprietary sales totaled $3.0 billion, including $2.0 billion from annuities and $955 million from insurance products, to which individual life sales contributed $165 million.