Weighing a contract offer against waiting - what worked for you?

I got a contract offer for 9 months as a security officer and I am unsure whether to accept. I have read a lot of threads here and could not find my exact situation. I would gain recent experience. How did you handle benefits?

Thanks for writing this out. I went through something close to it 8 months ago, and it settled down once I kept a simple log of every call and form.