Go to the VA Snippet editor, and set the search fields to:
Scope = Private
Language = C++
Type = Surround With
in the list of snippets you should see three versions of "if", for this code you are looking for the line "if () { ... } if"
Select this one, which will have the body - assuming you have not edited this default snippet yet:
if ($end$)
{
$selected$
}
and then set the "Surround With" field to "i" and accept the dialog. To use this snippet select the code you want to surround, and with the code selected press the letter "i", and this snippet will be triggered.
More generally, you can set a single character shortcut to trigger any snippet that uses $selected$ to trigger this snippet on selected text. $end$ is where the caret ends up after the snippet has been inserted.
