BofA to sell Balboa life unit to Securian

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) is selling a life insurance subsidiary to Securian Financial Group Inc, continuing a string of asset sales by the largest U.S. bank by assets.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but St. Paul, Minnesota-based Securian would acquire one of the pieces of a larger Balboa unit that BofA began to sell off earlier this year.

Securian said on Thursday that the deal is expected to close in October, pending regulatory approval. The insurer would then integrate Balboa's operations into the company's St. Paul headquarters in 2012.

BofA has been selling U.S. businesses and shedding stakes in overseas banks over the last year that senior executives say are extraneous to serving its customers, boosting the bank's regulatory capital in anticipation of new industry rules.

In February, BofA sold Balboa's home insurance unit to Australian insurer QBE Insurance Group Ltd (QBE.AX) for more than $700 million.

A BofA spokesman said the Securian sale would be "nonmaterial " for the bank, and the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender would retain Balboa's credit-card insurance business.

(Reporting by Joe Rauch, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)