(1) This Act shall apply to societies and branches subsisting at the commencement of this Act which or the rules of which have been registered, enrolled, or certified, under any Act relating to friendly societies or cattle insurance societies, as if they had been registered under this Act, and the rules of those societies and branches shall, so far as they are not contrary to any express provision of this Act, continue in force until altered or rescinded.
(2) Where the contingent annual payments to which the members or the nominees of the members of friendly societies or branches, established before the fifteenth day of August one thousand eight hundred and fifty, may become entitled exceed the limit fixed by this Act, the rules of those societies and branches shall continue to be valid, anything in this Act to the contrary notwithstanding.