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27-443: The title is a play-on-words about a type of insurance policy . Confidence man Buzz Buzzard ( Lionel Stander ) is looking for a fresh sucker to swindle. Looking off in the distance, Buzz sees a happy-go-lucky Woody Woodpecker ( Ben Hardaway ), minding his own business while whistling down the street. The cunning buzzard quickly assembles a makeshift insurance office and greases the sidewalk, causing Woody to slide directly through

54-432: A bakery would have to buy a separate policy for each of the following risks: manufacturing operations, elevators, teamsters , product liability, contractual liability (for a spur track connecting the bakery to a nearby railroad), premises liability (for a retail store), and owners' protective liability (for negligence of contractors hired to make any building modifications). In 1941, the insurance industry began to shift to

81-411: A battle of wits between them, only to have the tables turned on him when Woody knocks him into a pit full of alligators. As Buzz flees from his attackers (Woody and the gators), screaming into the distance, Woody laughs and tears up the policy. Wet Blanket Policy is notable the first cartoon to introduce Woody's new theme song, "The Woody Woodpecker Song". Written by George Tibbles and Ramey Idriss ,

108-419: A mix of standard and nonstandard forms. By analogy, policy endorsements that are not written on standard forms or whose language is custom-written to fit the insured's particular circumstances are known as manuscript endorsements. Boilerplate (text) Boilerplate text , or simply boilerplate , is any written text ( copy ) that can be reused in new contexts or applications without significant changes to

135-593: A more popular foil for Woody than Wally Walrus , who appeared less frequently in Woody cartoons after this film. Buzz would appear regularly with Woody until 1955's Bunco Busters , when he was replaced by Dapper Denver Dooley (who debuted in 1955's Square Shootin' Square and used until 1959's The Tee Bird ), Gabby Gator (who debuted in 1960's Southern Fried Hospitality and appeared recurrently until 1963's Greedy Gabby Gator ), and Ms. Meany (who debuted in 1963's Calling Dr. Woodpecker and stayed throughout

162-422: A policy. Oral contracts pending the issuance of a written policy can occur. The insurance contract or agreement is a contract whereby the insurer promises to pay benefits to the insured or on their behalf to a third party if certain defined events occur. Subject to the "fortuity principle", the event must be uncertain. The uncertainty can be either as to when the event will happen (e.g. in a life insurance policy,

189-401: Is a contract between two parties, where the terms and conditions of the contract are set by one of the parties, and the other party has little or no ability to negotiate more favorable terms and is thus placed in a "take it or leave it" position. Boilerplate language may also exist in pre-created form letters . The person sending the form letter then usually only needs to add his or her name at

216-442: Is little industry-wide standardization. For the vast majority of insurance policies, the only page that is heavily custom-written to the insured's needs is the declarations page. All other pages are standard forms that refer back to terms defined in the declarations as needed. However, certain types of insurance, such as media insurance, are written as manuscript policies , which are either custom-drafted from scratch or written from

243-640: Is particularly salient when the programmer must include a lot of code for minimal functionality. A related phenomenon, bookkeeping code, is code that is not part of the business logic, but is interleaved with it to keep data structures updated or able to handle secondary aspects of the program. A boilerplate statement or response generally refers to a message used with minimal effort for multiple different situations. Examples include official statements from government officials such as " Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected " or messages left by companies' voicemail such as "Thank you for holding . Your call

270-517: Is similar across a wide variety of different types of insurance policies. The insurance policy is generally an integrated contract, meaning that it includes all forms associated with the agreement between the insured and insurer. In some cases, however, supplementary writings such as letters sent after the final agreement can make the insurance policy a non-integrated contract. One insurance textbook states that generally "courts consider all prior negotiations or agreements ... every contractual term in

297-481: The American Association of Insurance Services . This reduces the regulatory burden for insurers as policy forms must be approved by states; it also allows consumers to more readily compare policies, albeit at the expense of consumer choice . In addition, as policy forms are reviewed by courts, the interpretations become more predictable as courts elaborate upon the interpretation of the same clauses in

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324-480: The Supreme Court of California complained: The instant case presents yet another illustration of the dangers of the present complex structuring of insurance policies. Unfortunately the insurance industry has become addicted to the practice of building into policies one condition or exception upon another in the shape of a linguistic Tower of Babel . We join other courts in decrying a trend which both plunges

351-561: The insurance policy is a contract (generally a standard form contract ) between the insurer and the policyholder, which determines the claims which the insurer is legally required to pay. In exchange for an initial payment, known as the premium, the insurer promises to pay for loss caused by perils covered under the policy language. Insurance contracts are designed to meet specific needs and thus have many features not found in many other types of contracts. Since insurance policies are standard forms, they feature boilerplate language which

378-413: The current system where covered risks are initially defined broadly in an "all risk" or "all sums" insuring agreement on a general policy form (e.g., "We will pay all sums that the insured becomes legally obligated to pay as damages..."), then narrowed down by subsequent exclusion clauses (e.g., "This insurance does not apply to..."). If the insured desires coverage for a risk taken out by an exclusion on

405-455: The end of the pre-written greeting and body. Typically, the sender of such a letter needs to personalize it minimally, often by just adding their name or specific details to a pre-written greeting and body, making these templates highly practical for mass communication or repetitive correspondence. In computer programming, boilerplate is the sections of code that have to be included in many places with little or no alteration. Such boilerplate code

432-592: The first minute of the film). As a result of including "The Woody Woodpecker Song" in Wet Blanket Policy , the song became the first and only tune from an animated short subject to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song , losing the award to " Buttons and Bows " from The Paleface . Lantz adopted the song as Woody's theme music from then on. The cartoon also prominently featured Woody's new adversary, Buzz Buzzard. Buzz proved to be

459-657: The front door. Buzz tries to convince Woody that he needs an insurance policy. Buzz tells Woody that "one never knows when a little accident might prove fatal". Woody is then bamboozled into signing a policy, with the fine print clearly stating that it will pay Buzz $ 10,000 in case of accidental death. However, Woody soon realizes what is going on and challenges him to try to carry out his plan, mocking him by saying "If you think you're going to bump ME off and collect $ 10,000...you're crazy! Anytime you can get $ 10,000 from me, it'll be over my dead body, you dirty crook!" Buzz then tries his best to kill Woody so he can collect, resulting in

486-572: The insured into a state of uncertainty and burdens the judiciary with the task of resolving it. We reiterate our plea for clarity and simplicity in policies that fulfill so important a public service. In the United States, property and casualty insurers typically use similar or even identical language in their standard insurance policies, which are drafted by advisory organizations such as the Insurance Services Office and

513-554: The original. The term is used about statements, contracts, and source code , and is often used in the media pejoratively to refer to clichéd or unoriginal writing. "Boiler plate" originally referred to the rolled steel used to make boilers to heat water. Metal printing plates ( type metal ) used in hot metal typesetting of prepared text such as advertisements or syndicated columns were distributed to small, local newspapers , and became known as 'boilerplates' by analogy. One large supplier to newspapers of this kind of boilerplate

540-469: The policy at the time of delivery, as well as those written afterward as policy riders and endorsements ... with both parties' consent, are part of the written policy". The textbook also states that the policy must refer to all papers which are part of the policy. Oral agreements are subject to the parol evidence rule , and may not be considered part of the policy if the contract appears to be whole. Advertising materials and circulars are typically not part of

567-489: The policy were covered; hence, those policies are now described as "individual" or "schedule" policies. This system of "named perils" or "specific perils" coverage proved to be unsustainable in the context of the Second Industrial Revolution , in that a typical large conglomerate might have dozens of types of risks to insure against. For example, in 1926, an insurance industry spokesman noted that

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594-401: The rest of the shorts' run) as Woody's main antagonist in the series; Buzz would only reappear ten years after Dooley's final appearance, in 1969's Tumble Weed Greed . Lionel Stander provided the voice of Buzz Buzzard for his earliest appearances. When Stander was blacklisted in 1951, Dal McKennon stepped in as Buzz as well as Wally and Dooley. Insurance policy In insurance ,

621-451: The same policy forms, rather than different policies from different insurers. In recent years, however, insurers have increasingly modified the standard forms in company-specific ways or declined to adopt changes to standard forms. For example, a review of home insurance policies found substantial differences in various provisions. In some areas such as directors and officers liability insurance and personal umbrella insurance there

648-434: The song was performed by Kay Kyser , with Gloria Wood providing vocals and Harry Babbitt chiming in with Woody's trademark laugh. The song was a smash hit, selling over 250,000 records within ten days of its release. Cashing in on the unexpected popularity, Walter Lantz hastily inserted the tune into Wet Blanket Policy , his latest film in production at the time (which explains why the action and music do not match up for

675-427: The standard form, the insured can sometimes pay an additional premium for an endorsement to the policy that overrides the exclusion. Insurers have been criticized in some quarters for the development of complex policies with layers of interactions between coverage clauses, conditions, exclusions, and exceptions to exclusions. In a case interpreting one ancestor of the modern "products-completed operations hazard" clause,

702-420: The time of the insured's death is uncertain) or as to if it will happen at all (e.g. in a fire insurance policy, whether or not a fire will occur at all). Insurance contracts were traditionally written on the basis of every single type of risk (where risks were defined extremely narrowly), and a separate premium was calculated and charged for each. Only those individual risks expressly described or "scheduled" in

729-516: Was the Western Newspaper Union, which supplied "ready-to-print stories" that "contained national or international news" to papers with smaller geographic footprints, which could include advertisements pre-printed next to the conventional content. In contract law, the term "boilerplate language" or " boilerplate clause " describes the parts of a contract that are considered standard. A standard form contract or boilerplate contract

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