Lost Policy Release (LPR)

Back in the day, to cancel a policy, an insured party would have to return the original document to the insurance company. If the insured could not find the actual, physical, paperly-written-and-signed policy, they would have to complete a lost policy release from the insurance company, basically to say they know what policy they have currently, but do want to cancel it. Huge friction in canceling.

Consumer advocates made the process dramatically less painful for the modern era. Today, for the most part, all those machinations aren't necessary. For auto policies, an insured party might have to sign a form releasing the company from liability (like if they've decided to switch to another company), but at least the original paper documents don't keep us hostage anymore.