Do you run vim in vi-compatible mode or im vim-mode?

you can configure your vim, so it reads from a template file if you create a new .pl file

.vimrc:

if has("autocmd")
    " load template file for new file and jump to line #
    autocmd BufNewFile *.pl r ~/.vim/templates/pl | 1d | 5
endif
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if vim opens a non-existant file (filename ending with ".pl"),
it inserts the content of file "~/.vim/templates/pl" after the current line
as we opened a new buffer, the current line was 1; that is now empty and is to be deleted
as a last action the cursor is positioned in line 5

(please note, that the pipe is the command separator in vim)

~/.vim/templates/pl:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;



#> global variables (the less, the better)
#> -------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------

#> sub routines
#> -------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------

# main script
#> -------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------

__END__
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See :help autocmd in vim for more details of that feature.
I think you can even configure it so it adjusts the file permissions on open/save/whatever....