We'd suspected the form was just a tedious, if impressively thorough, bit of bureaucracy.
In 2008, Felipe Calderón, the president, held a competition to identify and abolish the country's most pointless bit of bureaucracy.
One bit of bureaucracy the Frerers came up against was the insurance company's demand for a detailed list of the contents of their destroyed home, including what they paid for each item, its current value and its replacement value.
In her first public speech since being reappointed home secretary, May said that the next round of savings would mean that police reform would have to go much deeper than "shaving a bit of excess off here" or reducing a bit of bureaucracy there.
For the privilege of being the first people in nearly eight years to climb the 354 steps to the crown of the Statue of Liberty, 30 visitors on the sun-kissed morning of July 4 had to first endure a bit of bureaucracy: red tape and stiff security.
So-called "border removals" are at record levels, now accounting for nearly two-thirds of the 368,644 deportations carried out by ICE in 2013, according to a recent New York Times report that sparked plenty of reaction – but left an important bit of bureaucracy largely unnoticed.
One official Chinese newspaper complained recently that Indian approval for Chinese investments can take between six months and a year, and requires the endorsement of four bits of the bureaucracy, whereas investments from most other countries require approval only from the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank.India has indeed blocked investments in ports and telecoms infrastructure.
In practice, this is a well-intentioned piece of bureaucracy.
The office remains an unusual bit of state bureaucracy that works in partnership with its stakeholders.
The need for reform isn't simply about improving the effectiveness of a lumbering bit of the bureaucracy for the sake of efficiency savings and a quicker process.
