Specially in your case, you do not need insurance, you have the marketable skill, you will earn much higher $$ in contractor position.
Not all the contractor jobs are busy. You do the same tasks as the FTE. They pay you the hour as you worked.
For DBA job, you gain more experience when you jump in different companies.
One kind of contractor job is: you work for a consulting firm, they send you do different client company like Google, Yahoo, Intel. You stay in the client's company for about 1.5 year, then you say you feel boring at here, you want to go to another place, your Agent company will send you to a new place without do interview with Client company. I knew many people do this kind of jobs.
Enjoy your higher Pay!