The templates distributed from Office.com are of little use in producing work. They are best used as starting points or idea generators.

Yes, you want to create and use your own custom templates.
Templates in Microsoft Word

When you have what you want, you save it as a template. You put the template where you and others can access it. That is ordinarily in a Workgroup Templates folder.

See File New Variations in the Versions of Word to see ideas on how to access this template.