TL;DR: How can an American apostille a document that is from a private company, considering every state and federal apostille only allows documents that are signed or issued by government agencies?
First off, I’m SO happy I found this forum. It’s helping me get answers and so I hope to contribute to answers and topics to help others. So here’s my newest speedbump, and maybe this will help others in the future if they find it!
I’m retired US military and through some inheritance, and careful saving through my time in the military, have had enough saved to apply for the Golden Visa (while my wife continues to work a full time job until she’s ready to leave). I have a retirement, some disability, and we look forward to spending our retirement time in Portugal.
As part of the AIMA appointment, they require an apostilled private health insurance showing that I am covered in Portugal (as I can’t be covered by the public system… fair). My Tricare coverage (tricare overseas) covers everything we need, for the duration of my lifetime. But in the US, as far as I can tell, you cannot apostille documents that are not issued by a government agency. I can apostille marriage certificates, FBI background checks, etc, because they are all signed by government agencies.
Tricare, is a private company, contracted by the government. THey also don’t have a pdf policy, you can only search online to get answers, so it’s hard to ‘prove’ that they cover the necessary things.
Any advice? I’d like to NOT purchase private insurance just to qualify for a VISA considering I have private insurance that DOES cover me… I’m just having a hard time getting apostilled proof. Thanks!
There are two answers to it, both correct, so make your choice
Evidence of health insurance is only required if you already live in PT (i.e. for our practical purposes that means if your NIF address is in PT). Your lawyers should know about this.
Generally speaking, you can take any document to a notary, have it certified by them (or have a certified copy made), and then apostille the notary’s signature.
Which means nothing except “I signed this in front of a notary who verified my ID”. You could do it with ANY document, even a child’s drawing of Batman.
The notary still ‘verifies’ the original document to some extent. E.g. when I gave them a pdf from a university they wanted to get a confirmation email from that university to know they really issued that pdf.
For informational purposes… In the instances outside of “generally speaking”, where there are restrictions on copy certifications by a notary, most people opt to sign a document with language saying something along the lines of “I certify this XYZ document is a true and correct copy of the original document”, that statement document is notarized, and then you take everything for apostille.
In my experience, that is not correct. The notary is only witnessing your signature, which states that the document is a true and correct copy under the penalties of perjury. If a notary wanted some other confirmation of the document, they would be going beyond the traditional scope of the notary function, which is to serve as official witness to the signature.
OP could simply printout Tricare document showing coverage, write in a blank space that this is a “true and correct” copy of proof of health insurance on it, take it to a notary, have it notarized using the magic language. It could then be apostilled.
I have considered bringing a copy of Tricare to a notary and signing (notarizing) a statement that this is a true copy. I am also talking with Tricare to make sure they send me a statement that shows the exact verbiage that the GV needs. I guess my best case scenario is to verify with the lawyers that I shouldn’t need it at all as I don’t live in PT, and secondly have this statement from Tricare notarized as a certified copy, and also a statement from myself stating that this information is true or something to the like.
Sigh. Red tape. I get they want to ensure I’m covered medically to protect themselves, but having it need to be apostilled seems way over the top.
Also if it’s not a document (like birth or marriage cert) that’s issued by a particular state, you can do the notarization in any state you like.
Why would you want to pick a different state? Well some states allow remote online notarization and have fast apostille. For example https://www.notarypublic24.com/apostille/ offers a 24 hour combined online notarization and apostille service for $130. Not sure which state’s notaries they use but it’s probably hard to beat that combination in most states.
Before you comply, remember that if a lawyer imposes unnecessary red tape on you, it’s a sign they don’t know their stuff. If you don’t live in PT, get a different lawyer.
California noteary here. We only verify the person signing, we cannot cerify any document as true and correct. Agree if you really need this (was never asked to provide for my GV) I would sign a statement in front of a notary that it’s a true and correct and then get it apostilled. The govt only seems to care that an apostille is attached.
Forgive me, but I overanalyze things. To me, and google translate (I know it’s not perfect), doesn’t this mean that since I’m applying for a Golden Visa for two years, I’m requesting to be able to reside there, and therefore need proof of health insurance?
No, proof of health insurance is not required unless you already live ‘full time’ in PT.
A formal trigger of ‘full time’ for our purposes would be having your NIF address in PT.
