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Except that aggregating is very common for evaluating whether government imposed regulations are sensible (just because something is the "right thing to do" does not necessarily mean it should be mandated by the government).
Also, I'd argue that if the only reason you removed the tree now was because of a 1 in (let's say to just pick a number) 100,000,000 chance of killing someone in any given year beyond 15 years from now that your $5,000 was very poorly spent.
If the odds of damage or death from the tree, however, are significant then aggregating might very wear bolster the case.
Conversely, what if a rather than the $5,000 fix there is a $40 fix that would save 70% of the lives (I have no idea if there is). At what point is the cost disproportionate to the minuscule -- though very real -- risk?
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