The term is used about statements, contracts, and source code, and is often used pejoratively to refer to clichéd or unoriginal writing.
One large supplier to newspapers of this kind of boilerplate 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.
The person sending the form letter then usually only needs to add his or her name at 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.
A boilerplate statement or response generally refers to a message used with minimal effort for multiple different situations.