Definitions

Claimed Product (CP)

  • The product being claimed by the policyholder.

Item of Loss

  • The item being claimed by the policyholder.

Replacement Product (RP)

  • The product identified by ValueChecker and/or the Claims Handler to replace the product being claimed by the policyholder. Note: This can be the same product as the Claimed Product - if still available on the market at a reasonable price - or a different product of the same Like-Kind-and-Quality (LKQ).

Replacement Cost Value (RCV)

  • The cost to replace the Claimed Product at the time of damage, thus the price to purchase the Replacement Product (RP).

Actual Cash Value (ACV)

  • The calculated value of the Claimed Product after applying the insurer’s depreciation rules. Thus the ACV = RCV - Depreciation.

Depreciation

  • A reduction - based on the rules of the insurer - in the value of the Claimed Product over time, due in particular to wear and tear.

vcid

  • Identifier assigned to very specific groupings of similar products in ValueChecker, that have the same or similar price regardless of model.
    Example: “Apple iPhone 7 32GB Gold”, “Apple iPhone 7 32GB Black”, etc.

    One vcid can only have 1 alid.

alid

  • Identifier assigned to broad groupings of similar products in ValueChecker, that are of the same model family but can have.
    Example: Apple iPhone 7.

    One alid can have many vcid’s.

Like-Kind-and-Quality (LKQ)

  • A condition in property insurance policies that states that the insurer would cover the cost of repairing or replacing a covered loss (“Claimed Product”) with property (“Replacement Product”) that is similar in composition and quality. The ValueChecker is calculating the Replacement Products for all Claimed Products that are in the Replacement Categories, based on multiple relevant product specifications defined for each individual category. As a general rule, for all Replacement Categories the Replacement Products should be of the same Brand and not of an older model family compared to the Claimed Product.

User

  • The individual who uses ValueChecker during the claim handling process. This could be a Claim Handler or a Policyholder.

Event Codes

Event Segments

Events codes are 6 character long strings constructed using segments that can be parsed to identify the error reason and API resource.

There are 3 segments totalling 6 characters: ABCDEF

The segment comprising the 1st and 2nd character denotes the Event Severity.

SegmentDescription
POS(1,2)Position 1 and 2 of the Event Code: SEVERITY
ERPrefix segment for events of severity ERROR
WAPrefix segment for events of severity WARN
INPrefix segment for events of severity INFO

WARN and INFO events are not currently implemented as of this documentation. They will be added in an upcoming release.

ERROR Events

Calls to the ValueChecker API that result in an error for any reason will result in an error response. These event codes begin with ER.

400
{
    "event_code": "ERIPCS",
    "event_dict": {
        "event_severity": "ERROR",
        "title": "Invalid parameter",
        "description": "The \"client_category_id\" parameter is invalid. The value must be an integer."
    },
    "error": "Invalid parameter",
    "description": "The \"client_category_id\" parameter is invalid. The value must be an integer.",
}

The root keys of error and description are maintained for backwards compatibility and can be safely ignored. They are deprecated and will be removed in an upcoming release.

Error Segment

The segment comprising the 3rd and 4th character denotes the Error type (when the first segment is ER).
The segment comprising the 5th and 6th character denotes the Error location (resource).

SegmentDescription
POS(3,4)Position 3 and 4 of the Event Code: Type
AEResource already exists
IPA passed parameter(s) is invalid (i.e. expecting INT, got STRING)
ITThe bearer token is invalid
MPA required parameter is missing
NAMethod requested is not allowed
NFResource is not found
WPThe value of passed parameter is wrong
POS(5,6)Position 3 and 4 of the Event Code: Location
SSThe error was raised from /search_suggestion
PSThe error was raised from /product_search
PRThe error was raised from /prices

Status Codes

All status codes are standard HTTP status codes.
The following status codes are used by the ValueChecker API.

Status CodeDescription
200OK
204No Content
400Bad Request

Deprecated

Deprecated at version 0.20.70

200
{
  "results": [
    {
      "child_products": [],
      "pid": 1122795690,
      "cid": 132,      
      "category": "Laptops",
      "client_category": "Laptops",
      "client_category_id": 2000,
      "product_name": "Asus Zenfone 9 8GB 5G 128GB White",
      "Product_picture_url": "https://img.valuechecker.net/,..j",
      "specs": [
        {
          "spec_id": 999,
          "spec_name_display": "Marke",
          "spec_value_display": "Asus",
          "spec_value_numeric": 1.0,
          "spec_name": "Marke"
        }
      ],
      "price": {
        "price": 790.0,
        "price_url": "https://www.belsimpel.nl/asus-zen…",
        "shop_count": 1,
        "price_date": "2022-12-06 15:58:52"
      },
    },
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "category": {
      "requested_client_category_id": 1234,
      "requested_client_category": "Laptops",
      "prediction_certainty": 0.9978,
      "predicted_client_category_id": 469,
      "predicted_client_category": "Mobiele Telefoon",
      "category_switched": true
    },
  "used_query": "asus zenfone 2015"
  }
}

Deprecation warnings:

  • cid has been deprecated and will be removed in a future update. Please use the client_category_id directly instead.
  • category has been deprecated and will be removed in a future update. However, the client_category will return the same information.

Deprecated at version 0.20.70

200
{
    "claimed_product": {
        "pid": 1008793454,
        "cid": 132,
        ...,
        "client_category": "Television",
        "client_category_id" 2000
    },
    "grouped_prices": [
        [
            {
                "pid": 1008793454,
                "shop_product_name": "LG 55SM9010PLA Zwart",
            },
        ],
    ],
}

Depraction warnings

  • cid has been deprecated and will be removed in a future update. Please use the client_category_id directly instead.

The ValueChecker response for the product_search formatted as a list response has been migrated to an object response.
All clients currently using the list response should migrate to the object response before April 1st, 2023.

Example list response. See the current object response.

200
{
    "child_products": [],
    "pid": 1122795690,
    "product_name": "Asus Zenfone 9 8GB 5G 128GB White",
    "product_picture_url": "https://img.valuechecker.net/,...jpg",
    "specs": [
        {
            "spec_id": 999,
            "spec_name_display": "Marke",
            "spec_value_display": "Asus",
            "spec_value_numeric": 1.0,
            "spec_name": "Marke"
            },
    ],
    "price": {
            "price": 790.0,
            "price_url": "https://www.belsimpel.nl/asus-zen…",
            "shop_count": 1,
            "price_date": "2022-12-06 15:58:52"
    },
    "source": "Belsimpel",
    ...,
}

OAuth Authentication

Deprecated at version 0.12.45

ValueChecker uses the OAuth 2.0 standard for authentication.
Currently the authentication process of a new user to the system is handled internally by ValueChecker. You will be sent an access_token. (Type: Bearer Token.)
To get started using ValueChecker’s API, use the access_token as required for every request. Ask your ValueChecker contact for more information.

To include the access_token in a request, include it as an “Authorization” header.

curl example
curl \
-H "Authorization: apiKey zcwPhya.S23UR5cN....xFWLdKq2KRLX" \
-X GET https://api.valuechecker.net/<endpoint>?query=param1&param2=40&param3=-1